Sustainability Assessment of Wastewater Systems: An Environmental and Economic Approach

Abstract

To address current challenges regarding sustainable development of wastewater treatment and provide scientific support in decision procedures towards sustainable solutions, new approaches, frameworks and methodologies about different possible solutions and their potential sustainability implications are needed. One way to facilitate sustainability assessment of wastewater is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology; however, it fails to map the full scope of wastewater impacts. This paper presents a framework to evaluate the performance of Wastewater Treatment Facilities (WWTF) taking into consideration various factors for insuring environmental sustainability. A total of nine indicators, seven environmental and two economic related to four wastewater treatment facilities, were assessed. Apart from evaluating the sustainability, this study also discussed the link of life cycle approach and social aspects of wastewater. The results show that for the environmental dimension using LCA provides information on different types of environmental activities and different impact categories. LCA can thus be used to quantify and compare the multiple types of impacts caused by one type of use or emission, as well as the various resource uses or emissions that contribute to one type of impacts. For the economic dimension, there is still a need for consistent and robust indicators and methods. The empirical results suggest that the environmental sustainability framework can be used in the first phase of the decision procedure that leads to a strategic choice for sustainable resource recovery from wastewater in developing countries. This motives researchers and decision-makers to consider the whole picture, and not just individual aspects, when considering different futures scenarios.

Social Life Cycle Assessment of Mexico City's Water Cycle

“…Database of the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI) portal. Three options for coefficients of variation (CV) are High, CV ranging from (0-15); Medium, CV in (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) and Low, CV in 30% and more. Data accuracy by indicator.…”

“…[21] Later, it was extended to environmental and economic analysis. [22] Finally, Amaral et al conducted a sustainability assessment of biogas treatment plants in Brazil using the S-LCA for the social dimension. [23] On the other hand, Opher et al conducted a comparative sustainability assessment of the reuse of domestic wastewater recovered from toilet flushing and landscape irrigation.…”

Social life cycle assessment of an innovative industrial wastewater treatment plant

“…They concluded that water systems need an S-LCA methodology with specific indicators to help the decision-making process. Padilla-Rivera et al (2019) proposed a useful metric to decide which is the best WWT from an environmental, social and economic perspective. In selecting the appropriate indicators, they considered that, up to now, the emphasis on wastewater has been on the epidemiological features and their consequences on health and on the social aspects of its use, mainly linked to irrigation.…”

Influence Of Renewable Energy On Sustainable Development Of The Russian Regions

“…Changes in natural systems caused by nature-intensive sectors of the economy, including energy, are manifested in the form of significant material and energy flows (Davankov et al, 2017). The movement of ecosystem components and the extraction of natural resources lead to the degradation of the natural environment and put it in an unbalanced state (Padilla-Rivera et al, 2019). The sustainability assessment of energy biosphere flows and energy of regional economic activity should be based on the use of a general criterion of material input (Giljum, 2011).…”