Sustainability of Wastewater Treatment Systems

Question: Discuss about the Sustainability of Wastewater Treatment Systems. Answer: Introduction: The conventional wastewater solutions were not integrated, as these solutions make the recovery of resources difficult, including water, energy and nutrients. However, in contrast, new technologies are offering a range of alternative solutions for sustainable wastewater management. The key question in current context is whether it is possible to attain more sustainable urban water management by improvement of existing centralised systems or if it is crucial to implement new decentralized systems. The changed perspective for sustainability triggers the implementation of change. While switching over a decentralized aspect, close evaluation is needed into the sustainability of different systems in different situations (Balkema et al., 2002). As the changed process also has disadvantages, thus, before implementation, trade-offs should be considered crucially. In this paper, author summarizes multi-criteria assessment for sustainability of waste water treatment system. This method include s the use of sustainability indicators in multi objective optimisation, thereby aiding the community to select more suitable options. A number of sustainability indicators have been highlighted in the wastewater treatment systems. During the assessment phase, the sustainability indicators should be discussed. There are several sustainability indicators, based on which the suitable solutions are determined for a waste water management process. Four types of sustainability indicators have been discussed in this paper. The functional indicators help to determine the minimum technical requirement for the sustainability solution. For instance, effluent quality, adaptability, durability, reliability, maintenance required, robustness etc are functional indicator. The second one is economic indicators which are crucial during the section of the appropriate technology for the practical situation (Balkema et al., 2002). The commonly used indicators include the investment, operation, affordability, labour and effectiveness. The third indicator is environmental indicator. Environmental indicators are important for analyzing the resource utilization for addressing nutrients, water and energy. The indicators are resource ut ilization, biodiversity, lad fertility, land area and others, as indicated in several previous literatures. The fourth sustainability indicator is social-cultural indicator, which are hard to be quantified and thus, these two indicators are often misled. However, these two sustainability indicators have a significant role in technology implementation. The role of these indicators is especially highlighted, when the end-user is directly involved like in small scale onsite treatment, sanitation and water use. There is different use of these indictors in different circumstances (Balkema et al., 2002). For instance, in case of institutional requirements, different regulations and control mechanisms are required for different wastewater treatment. In case of acceptance, regarding waste management and sanitation, people from different culture would have different perspectives. In case of expertise, a notable level of expertise is required for installation and operation. All of these indicators are quantifiable, via cost calculation, measurement or enquiries. The indicators have both potential advantages and disadvantages. For instance, one potential advantage is stimulation of sustainable behaviour, in contrast, one disadvantage is acceptance, which may vary within different communities, due to diverse perspectives of community and technology users (Balkema et al., 2002). This paper analyzed the in-depth methodology of sustainability assessment in a system analysis with the use of multi-disciplinary set of sustainability indicators. Authors finally highlighted the crucial sustainability indicators; those include organic matter, cost, nutrient and land area. Reference Balkema, A. J., Preisig, H. A., Otterpohl, R., Lambert, F. J. (2002). Indicators for the sustainability assessment of wastewater treatment systems.Urban water,4(2), 153-161.