diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 61451e7bee..e0bfb4ea2d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -52,6 +52,13 @@ orchestrated via Kubernetes (forthcoming).
      to mute all logging (for example, in CI pipelines) irrespective of Node
      environment and other settings that would normally affect the logging
      verbosity of the API
+   * `API_SHARED_FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_PATH` (string, optional, default is
+     `/tmp/storage`): set this to a filesystem path if needing to override the
+     default temporary storage location where shared volumes for files shared
+     from the API to the Geoprocessing service are mounted; configuration of
+     mount point for shared storage (via Docker volumes in development
+     environments and via Persistent Volumes in Kubernetes environments) should
+     be set accordingly
    * `APP_SERVICE_PORT` (number, required): the port on which the App service should
      listen on the local machine
    * `POSTGRES_API_SERVICE_PORT` (number, required): the port on which the
diff --git a/api/config/custom-environment-variables.json b/api/config/custom-environment-variables.json
index b22b2804bb..a5feef8a58 100644
--- a/api/config/custom-environment-variables.json
+++ b/api/config/custom-environment-variables.json
@@ -27,5 +27,10 @@
    "connection": {
      "host": "REDIS_HOST"
    }
+  },
+  "storage": {
+    "sharedFileStorage": {
+      "localPath": "API_SHARED_FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_PATH"
+    }
   }
 }
diff --git a/api/config/default.json b/api/config/default.json
index b73f2383f5..2479a369f7 100644
--- a/api/config/default.json
+++ b/api/config/default.json
@@ -26,6 +26,11 @@
   },
   "geoprocessing": {
     "url": "http://geoprocessing:3000"
+  },
+  "storage": {
+    "sharedFileStorage": {
+      "localPath": "/tmp/storage"
+    }
   }
 }
 
diff --git a/geoprocessing/config/custom-environment-variables.json b/geoprocessing/config/custom-environment-variables.json
index 1f8ae9b4e6..1caffa9914 100644
--- a/geoprocessing/config/custom-environment-variables.json
+++ b/geoprocessing/config/custom-environment-variables.json
@@ -19,5 +19,10 @@
   },
   "api": {
     "url": "API_SERVICE_URL"
+  },
+  "storage": {
+    "sharedFileStorage": {
+      "localPath": "API_SHARED_FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_PATH"
+    }
   }
 }
diff --git a/geoprocessing/config/default.json b/geoprocessing/config/default.json
index bcd3e6444d..5d239be77c 100644
--- a/geoprocessing/config/default.json
+++ b/geoprocessing/config/default.json
@@ -12,5 +12,10 @@
    },
   "api": {
     "url": "http://api:3000"
+  },
+  "storage": {
+    "sharedFileStorage": {
+      "localPath": "/tmp/storage"
+    }
   }
 }