A comparative social life cycle assessment of urban domestic water reuse alternatives

Opher, Tamar; Shapira, Aviad; Friedler, Eran

doi:10.1007/s11367-017-1356-1

Cited by 39 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A brief summary of the results and the insights gathered therefrom has been presented in the following paragraphs. On the basis of this understanding of the 'what-is' and 'what-can-be', the interventions can be analyzed from a sustainability perspective using industrial ecology tools like E-LCA, LCC and S-LCA (as has been done for instance, for Israel, by [25,26] The key takeaway message from this paper is that megacities have the potential to supply water to other regions in the short term, and set examples for them to follow, as water sustainable regions. This paper, using the metabolism approach for a chosen case city, has emphasized on the need for a conscious diversification of water sources (by factoring in more of the wastewater and the stormwater) and also effective demand side management, whereby water must be used more wisely.…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Water Security Assessment Using an Integrated Metabolism Approach—Case Study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India

Ghosh¹,

Kansal

Govindarajan

2019

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Water is a non substitutable resource and a social good, which governments must perforce provide to its citizens in the right quantity and quality. An integrated urban metabolism model is useful in understanding the status quo of an urban water and sanitation system. By defining and measuring the values of relevant hydrological performance indicators—deliverables of the model referred to—a thorough knowledge of the present performance and the gaps, which need to be plugged en route to a sustainable urban water infrastructure, can be obtained, as demonstrated in this paper. This then forms the bedrock for decision-making and policy formulation for change to be introduced top-down as well as advice, which would enable the much needed bottom-up support to policies. The authors have chosen Delhi as the case study city, but would like to point out that this application can be reproduced for any other town/city/region of the world. The water balance within the chosen system boundaries shows that the annual unutilized flows, amounting to 1443 million cubic meters, dominate the metabolic flows of water in Delhi, and the annual groundwater withdrawal, which exceeds 420 million cubic meters, is much greater than the recharge rate, resulting in a rapid depletion of the groundwater level. There is an urgent need thereby to improve the rate of infiltration of stormwater and reduce the rate of runoff by focusing on increasing the share of permeable surfaces in the city, as well as to consider the wastewater streams as potential sources of water, while not forgetting demand side of management measures, as the pressure on the urban water system in the city is likely to intensify with a combination of population growth, economic development, and climate change in the near future. The recommendations provided by the authors towards the end of the article, can, if suitable measures are undertaken and robust policies are implemented, result in Delhi’s enjoying a water surplus in the short term, and progressively attain complete sustainability with regard to the utilization of its water resources.

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Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wastewater can be looked upon as a water resource, which can be utilized after proper treatment (as advocated by Alves [24] for Portugal and Opher [25] & Opher [26] for Israel)-it can meet 78.2% of the total needs. The use of groundwater can be discontinued altogether if even half the potential of wastewater is tapped.…”

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confidence: 99%

Urban Water Security Assessment Using an Integrated Metabolism Approach—Case Study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India

Ghosh¹,

Kansal

Govindarajan

2019

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“…Oteng-Peprah et al (2018) resulted that among the traditional treatment technologies, filtration techniques look feasible and have the potential of integration with other methods to obtain target specific treatment [21]. Opher et al (2017) used an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assess the effects of four methods of water reuse on three related stakeholders including public, community, and consumer groups [22]. Amiri et al (2019) studied the capability of some materials including activated carbon (AC), Iranian natural zeolite (Z), and stabilized nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) in single and combined modes for treating greywater to reuse in landscape irrigation [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clustering the Adsorbents of Horizontal Series Filtration in Greywater Treatment

2020

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One of the important alternative water resources for non-potable purposes is greywater (GW), which must be cleaned of contaminants. In this regard, the clustering analysis of materials consisting of sand (S), zeolite (Z), peat (P) and granular activated carbon (GAC) within a horizontal series filter (HSF) was used for removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total dissolved solids (TDS), and turbidity in GW taken from the Fasa University Student Hostel, Iran. The hierarchical clustering technique was applied to classify the adsorbents. The findings indicated that there were significant differences (more than 95%) between these materials. According to the similarity of level 95%, for COD, BOD, TDS, and turbidity removal, these adsorbents could be separately clustered in three, three, two, and three clusters, respectively. In addition, by considering the simultaneous changes of COD, BOD, TDS, and turbidity together, these adsorbents could be clustered in three different clusters. This paper proposed an efficient method to select the best combination of adsorbents for eliminating of COD, BOD, TDS, and turbidity from GW. Generally, based on the quality of treated greywater and literature, reusing greywater can be implemented for agriculture, artificial recharge of aquifers, desertification, and preventing the dust creation in arid areas such as southern Iran.

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“…In addition, the social performance of chemical industry was assessed though Product Social Impact Assessment [28]. So far, only two studies [21,29] have used SLCA to analyze the societal performance of water systems, but both of them concerned drinking water systems. Lehman et al [21] performed their study on the hotspot analysis level for plants for water supply and fuel conversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lehman et al [21] performed their study on the hotspot analysis level for plants for water supply and fuel conversion. Similarly, Opher et al [29] performed their analysis on the site-specific level for municipal services for reuse of domestic wastewater. Therefore, evaluating the process industry that produces feedstock for the chlor-alkali industry in the Netherlands is missing from SLCA literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Life Cycle Assessment of Brine Treatment in the Process Industry: A Consequential Approach Case Study

Tsalidis

Korevaar

2019

Sustainability

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Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) was developed to complement the environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic assessment. Contrary to LCA, SLCA is not yet standardized, and the consequential approach is little discussed in literature. This study aims to perform a consequential SLCA and investigate the applicability of the method in industrial decision making. The aforementioned assessment is done within the Zero Brine project, which works on zero liquid discharge technology for water, salt, and magnesium recovery from brine effluents. The developed SLCA systems are gate-to-gate, and the analysis is performed at two levels: Hotspot and site-specific. The system boundaries consist of a demineralized water (DW) production company, a chlor-alkali company, an electricity provider, a magnesium distributor in the Netherlands, and a Russian mining company. The latter exists only in the boundaries before the change due to the Zero Brine project, because recovered magnesium is expected to replace the Russian magnesium imported in the Netherlands. Within the system boundaries, the stakeholders contributing the most are the DW and the magnesium distributor companies. The former produces the brine and thus recovers the magnesium and salt. The latter is the exclusive distributor of Russian magnesium in the Netherlands. Overall, we find that the recovered magnesium results in improving social performance mainly in "Freedom of association and collective bargaining", "Fair salary", and "Health and Safety" due to decreasing the dependency of the Netherlands on Russia, while increasing operation in a country with much stronger environmental regulation and corporate commitment to sustainability issues. Modelling with SLCA may not result in the expected societal benefits, as the Russian community and workers may not benefit due to the large geographical boundaries of the system under study. Nevertheless, the application of the consequential approach can be considered suitable, yet complicated, for offering decision makers adequate social information. We recommend that decision makers in the DW company invest in magnesium recovery and that decision makers in the magnesium distributor company distribute the recovered magnesium.

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A comparative social life cycle assessment of urban domestic water reuse alternatives

Cited by 39 publications

References 43 publications

Urban Water Security Assessment Using an Integrated Metabolism Approach—Case Study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India

Urban Water Security Assessment Using an Integrated Metabolism Approach—Case Study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India

Clustering the Adsorbents of Horizontal Series Filtration in Greywater Treatment

Social Life Cycle Assessment of Brine Treatment in the Process Industry: A Consequential Approach Case Study

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