A Critical Review On Sustainability Assessment of Recycled Water Schemes

Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331
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Science of the Total Environment

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Review
A critical review on sustainability assessment of recycled water schemes

Zhuo Chen, Huu Hao Ngo , Wenshan Guo
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Recycled water provides a viable opportunity to supplement water supplies as well as alleviate environmental loads. To further expand current schemes and explore new recycled water end uses, this study reviews several environmental assessment tools, including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) in terms of their types, characteristics and weaknesses in evaluating the sustainability of recycled water schemes. Due to the limitations in individual models, the integrated approaches are recommended in most cases, of which the outputs could be further combined with additional economic and social assessments in multi-criteria decision making framework. The study also proposes several management strategies in improving the environmental scores. The discussion and suggestions could help decision makers in making a sound judgement as well as recognising the challenges and tasks in the future. 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Article history: Received 8 February 2012 Received in revised form 20 March 2012 Accepted 22 March 2012 Available online 20 April 2012 Keywords: Recycled water Environmental assessment tools Integrated approaches Multi-criteria decision making framework
Contents 1. 2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Environmental assessment tools on recycled water schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1. Types of MFA models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2. Application of MFA models on environmental sanitation improvement 2.1.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of MFA models . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1. Types of LCA models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2. Application of LCA models on recycled water schemes. . . . . . . . 2.2.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of LCA models . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1. Types of ERA models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2. Application of ERA models on recycled water schemes . . . . . . . 2.3.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of ERA models . . . . . . . . . . . Integrated assessment tools on recycled water schemes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. MFA coupled with LCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. LCA coupled with ERA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3. Multi-criteria decision making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1. Economic assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2. Social assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3. MCA implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 15 15 15 15 17 17 17 19 20 21 22 22 24 24 25 26 26 27 27 29
3.
Abbreviations: AAS, atomic adsorption spectrophotometer; AP, acidication potential; CAS, conventional activated sludge; CED, cumulative energy demand; CMF, ozonation, microltration and disinfection; DAR, depletion of abiotic resources; ECOSAR, ecological structure activity relationships; EIA, environmental impact assessment; EIO, economic inputoutput; EP, eutrophication potential; ERA, environmental risk assessment; ETP, ecotoxicity potential; FAETP, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity; FWU, freshwater use; GC, gas chromatography; GWP, global warming potential; HRA, human health risk assessment; HTP, human toxicity; ICP, inductively coupled plasma; KOREOCORisk, Korea ecological risk assessment model; LC, liquid chromatography; LCA, life cycle assessment; LCIA, life cycle impact assessment; MAETP, marine aquatic ecotoxicity; MBR, membrane bioreactor; MFA, material ow analysis; MIET, missing inventory estimation tool; MS, mass spectrometry; ODP, ozone depletion potential; ORWARE, Organic Waste Research model; PEC, predicted environmental concentration; PNEC, predicted no effect concentration; PHO, photochemical oxidation; RO, reverse osmosis; RQ, risk quotient; SAR, structure activity relationships; SP, salinisation potential; TEP, terrestrial ecotoxicity; UF, ultraltration; WEST, water-energy sustainability tool; WSP, wastewater stabilisation pond; WWTP, wastewater treatment plant. Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 9514 2745; fax: +61 2 9514 2633. E-mail address: h.ngo@uts.edu.au (H.H. Ngo). 0048-9697/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.03.055
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Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331
4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1. Introduction As far as the early 2000s, many cities and regions of developed countries including North America, Australia, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, have considered recycled water as an alternative water resource to combat water scarcity issues associated with population increase, surface water quality deterioration, groundwater depletion and climate change. With increasing knowledge and understanding on the merits of recycled water (e.g., alleviation of the pressure on existing water supplies, reduction of efuent disposal to surface and coastal waters and provision of more constant volume of water than rainfall-dependent sources), some planned recycled water schemes have also been observed in many developing countries, especially in intensive agricultural areas (Fatta-Kassinos et al., 2011a). Moreover, the technical possibility and economic affordability to produce recycled water of virtually drinking water quality have even broadened its application from non-potable uses (e.g., irrigation, industry, environmental ow, residential use, etc.) to indirect and direct potable reuses (Rodriguez et al., 2009). Currently, thousands of recycling projects and pilot studies are being carried out worldwide with many more in the planning and construction stages. With the water recycling targets being more aggressive, long-term sustainability of the recycled water scheme becomes critical for further project expansion and new end use exploration. The current environmental assessment models are playing vital important roles in fast and reliable evaluation of existing or future recycling schemes from a perspective of environment-related considerations. Several studies have applied Material Flow Analysis (MFA) to calculate the systematic material ow of pollutants and nutrients in environmental sanitation systems over a given period of time whereas others have used Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to identify environment-related issues of different wastewater treatment technologies or water resources on the ecosystem and natural resources in life cycle. Since risk is one of the determinative factors to the success of recycling schemes, the Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) studies have also been conducted to analyse the potential environmental risks (e.g., excessive pharmaceuticals and xenobiotic compounds on soil, surface water
and groundwater) resulted from recycled water projects (Ahmed, 2007; Meinzinger et al., 2009; Urkiaga et al., 2008). While most environmental studies have been carried out using a single environmental tool, the integrated models have been increasingly developed to compensate the weaknesses of individual ones (Benetto et al., 2007; Jeppsson and Hellstrom, 2002; Montangero et al., 2006a). However, the investigations on the selection and implementation of appropriate integrated models for particular recycling schemes are still limited and not well documented. Besides, failure to manage the existing recycling systems optimally has also introduced many challenges to local areas. For example, some of the schemes sought to achieve great environmental savings through minimising water consumption and maximising water recycling regardless of utility, economy and feasibility in particular geographical conditions whereas other recycling activities that caused the degradation of ecological habitats might have political or nancial underpinnings (Chapagain and Orr, 2009; Ku-Pineda and Tan, 2006). A systematic and comprehensive assessment in the project planning or management processes could be signicant which is to investigate the trade-off among a variety of issues (e.g., ambient ecosystem, engineering feasibility, infrastructure cost, energy consumption, recycled water pricing policies, community attitudes, etc.). Fig. 1 outlines how these different aspects can coordinate with each other and nally contribute to the environmental sustainability (Agnes et al., 2007; Levine and Asano, 2004; Meneses et al., 2010). Consequently, this review aims to summarise and discuss the characteristics and applications of each assessment model in different recycled water schemes. The authors emphasise the importance of integrated assessment approaches and the need to combine with other non-environmental-related models when further holistic planning analysis or management is required. Additionally, the authors stress contextual complexities in model integration that have not been given sufcient attention, yet which compromise the achievement of desired environmental sustainability improvements. The paper concludes by highlighting knowledge gaps (e.g., system boundary, model integration and performance) that future researchers may need to address.
Legal and institutional framework
Stakeholders roles and responsibilities
Costs and socioeconomic benefit
Environmental sanitation
Householders perceptions and needs, policy makers views, etc.
Scenarios development
Impact assessment
Environmental sustainability
Infrastructure, managerial and financial arrangements
Wastewater management
Health impact
Acceptance by users
Environmental impact and resource recovery
Fig. 1. Proposed procedure for multi-stakeholder environmental sustainability planning. Modied from Agnes et al. (2007).
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2. Environmental assessment tools on recycled water schemes 2.1. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) As MFA examines the material ows and their transformation in regional environmental systems over a given period of time, it addresses the importance of water recycling by linking adverse environmental impacts with possible resource recovery and reuse solutions (Brunner and Baccini, 1992; Jeppsson and Hellstrom, 2002). Generally, MFA consists of four steps: (1) denition of a system which composes of material ows, stocks and processes; (2) measurement of mass uxes and element concentrations of all goods; (3) calculation of the element uxes; and (4) schematic presentation and interpretation of the results (Sinsupan, 2004). Based on the law of the conservation of matter, environmental impacts of a particular ow can be calculated by a simple mass balance of all associated inputs, outputs and storage. The results can then be interpreted against environmental standards or can be linked to other assessment tools for further analysis. 2.1.1. Types of MFA models Qualitative MFA models are simple and can be quickly performed which help decision makers understand the metabolism of their region and provide early warning signals for future environmental issues. Nonetheless, it can only be regarded as an initial assessment as
numerical material ow data are not available (Agnes et al., 2007; Schneider et al., 2002). Comparatively, quantitative MFA models normally employ mathematical equations to quantify the processes and ows of transformation, production and consumption as well as the mass and/or water balance within the system, which offers more specic and reliable information in decision making. Depending on the variance of the ows over time, they can be further classied into static and dynamic forms. The static model, where the ows are assumed to be invariable, is suitable to estimate the ows with no primary data and calculate the effectiveness of adopting different policy scenarios in sustainability improvement. When the system is found to be unsustainable, the model is unable to tell when it became unsustainable due to its high uncertainties. On the other hand, the dynamic approach accounts for time dependence and analyses the ows of materials or any accumulation in stocks over a period of time based on mathematical probabilistic distributions (Jeppsson and Hellstrom, 2002; Park et al., 2011; Tangsubkul et al., 2005a). 2.1.2. Application of MFA models on environmental sanitation improvement MCA models have been increasingly applied to environmental sanitation planning in several developing countries such as Columbia, Ghana and Vietnam (Belevi, 2002; Binder and Pazel, 2001; Brunner and Baccini, 1992; Gumbo, 2005; Huang et al., 2007; Neset et al., 2006). With the water supply, sanitation, solid waste management
(a)
Industries
Households Greywater+ excreta Excreta
Wastewater
Open drainage
Surface water, groundwater, soil
(b)
Recycled WW Industries WW Households Excreta Greywater On-site sanitation (e.g. improved septic tank or urine diversion latrines) Effluent Agriculture, aquaculture Sludge
Ind. WWTP
Treated WW
Greywater treatment
Neighbourhood WWTP (e.g. ponds, constructed wetlands)
Surface water, groundwater, soil

Fig. 2. Simplied systems representing nitrogen ows in the current (a) and improved (b) sanitation system in urban areas in Vietnam. Modied from Agnes et al. (2007).
Agriculture, aquaculture
On-site sanitation Effluent Sludge
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and urban agriculture being considered in an integrated way, they are able to identify the key ows or processes associated with huge water consumption and serious environmental pollution. For instance, Agnes et al. (2007) evaluated the current environmental sanitation system in Vietnam as well as the effects of new sanitation concepts or measures. Fig. 2 depicts two conceptual MCA models where the thickness of arrows indicated the relative importance of the ows. The small scale decentralised wastewater treatment facilities (e.g., constructed wetlands or waste stabilisation ponds) for greywater treatment were proved to be effective in water sustainability improvement as treated water can be reused in agricultural irrigation and aquaculture and the amount of open drainage can be greatly reduced. The study also suggested treating industrial wastewater separately from domestic sources and then reusing it internally. Likewise, Schneider et al. (2002) analysed the metabolism of water within a region of Portugal. As can be seen from Fig. 3, signicant improvements in water sustainability can be achieved from less water consumption, increased internal or external water recycling and reuse, reduced wastewater discharge, lower variability, etc. Although several recycled water end uses (e.g., agriculture, household, industry and services) have been proposed in this water ow analysis, future more detailed quantitative assessments are required. Further, Sinsupan (2004) applied a static MFA model to investigate the nitrogen (N) uxes in wastewater and organic wastes in environmental sanitation planning at Pak Kret, Thailand, where around 1900 kg/day of N from wastewater and septage was discharged into the environment. To improve this situation, two new sanitation scenarios were put forward. The scenario 1 is to instal the wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) and reuse the treated
efuent and sludge for peri-urban agriculture whereas scenario 2 is to instal the WWTPs and compost the municipal organic solid wastes. According to the mass balance calculations in MFA, the scenario 1 was able to reduce the chemical fertiliser consumption by 57% and the N loading in wastewater by 31%, compared with 51% and 45% in scenario 2 respectively. Likewise, Tangsubkul et al. (2005a) investigated the phosphorus (P) and water reuse management strategies in the Sydney region for the year 2000. The results demonstrated that the combination of greywater recycling, composting toilet and human behaviour change (e.g., using P-free detergent and adopting a vegetarian diet) was the most effective solution since around 3600 tonnes/year of P can be prevented from entering the wastewater system. Besides, nearly all of the P in wastewater could be recovered in this combined system. Despite the data gaps in sociocultural, economic and health issues, both of the studies have identied the importance of conducting wastewater treatment and reuse in environmental sustainability. However, when temporal changes of the ows are of interest, the dynamic approach should be adopted rather than static ones. Montangero and Belevi (2008) reported three important mathematical equations in dynamic MFA approach. The most essential one is the mass balance equation: dMi Ai;rj Ai;js dt r s
(j)
where i is the indicator substance, j is the process number, Mi is the stock of substance i in process j, t is the time, r is the source process, s is the destination process, Ai,r j is the input ow of substance i from
Fig. 3. Metabolism of water in the socio-economy of a region. Adapted from Schneider et al. (2002).
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the source process r to the destination process s. The left side of the equation represents the stock change rate of substance i within the process j while the right side expresses the difference between input and output ows of substance i to and from process j. Ai,r j can be derived as follows: Ai;rj f p1 ; p2 pn 2
where p1, p2pn refer to parameters based on scientic and expert knowledge. Additionally, transfer coefcient is also commonly used in modelling material ows, which describes the partitioning of a substance in a process and provides the fraction of the total input of a substance transferred to a specic output good (Eq. (3)). ki;g Ai;g = Ai;rj :
r j j
makers. Despite of these strengths, MFA can only deal with one substance and the related environmental interventions at a particular time in one area. The side-effects to other substance chains are outside the study scope (Brunner and Rechberger, 2004; Hendriks et al., 2000; Wrisberg and Udo de Haes, 2002). As such, there is a risk that a critical problem might be overlooked if a wrong judgement is made on the goods/substance selection (Tangsubkul et al., 2005a). While most of recent MFA studies have recognised the importance of water recycling and reuse in environmental sanitation management, the downstream assessments and discussions on the feasibility and suitability of particular recycled water schemes are still essential. More work on the different fractions of water sources arrived at the WWTP, subsequent treatment technologies, the efuent quality, possible end uses and potential risks to human health and the environment should be done in the following analyses. 2.2. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) When dealing with water reuse issues, LCA mainly focuses on the energy and material requirements throughout an entire life cycle of the treatment process as well as the quality of treated efuent associated with t-for-purpose end uses (Muoz et al., 2009a). Table 1 lists several environmental impact categories or indicators in LCA, the analytical results of which are able to give an overall picture of the system performance or contributions to decision makers (Ahmed, 2007; Hermann et al., 2007; Liamsanguan and Gheewala, 2007). 2.2.1. Types of LCA models There are generally three types of LCA models at present, which are process-based LCA, economic inputoutput (EIO) LCA and hybrid LCA. The initial and simplest approach is the process-based LCA which is usually carried out in four steps: (1) goal and scope denitions, (2) life cycle inventory analysis, (3) life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and (4) life cycle improvement analysis and interpretation (Stokes and Horvath, 2006; Tangsubkul et al., 2005b). These four steps are inter-connected and can quickly contribute to strategic planning, technology development and improvement as well as decision making and marketing (ISO, 14040, International Standard, 1997; Pennington et al., 2004). Table 2 describes the purposes and major contents of each step. Still, there are several issues that need to be addressed. First, in Step 1, the inputs (e.g., materials and energy sources) and outputs (e.g., emissions and wastes) should be clearly identied and insignicant contributions in the system boundary should be excluded or ignored so as to minimise the time and effort in information collection in Step 2 (Matthews, 2011).
The study also addressed the importance of expressing the model inputs as probability distribution when limited data are given. Based on these equations, Montangero et al. (2007) carried out a case study to evaluate water and nutrient management strategies (e.g., household consumption patterns, type of sanitation infrastructure and wastewater reuse practices) in Hanoi, Vietnam. The model indicated that reusing a fraction of greywater for toilet ushing would reduce the water consumption from 140 L to 113 L per capita per day by 2015, which was tantamount to a 16% decrease in groundwater abstraction. Nevertheless, some important factors (e.g., the fate of organic matter, toxic substances, economic and social conditions) were not considered (Montangero et al., 2006a, 2006b). Moreover, Cencic and Rechberger (2008) introduced a user-friendly software named STAN which supports performing MFA according to the Austrian standard NORM S 2096 under consideration of data uncertainties. Predened elements such as processes, ows, system boundaries and text elds can be imported from Microsoft Excel or input manually whereas uncertain data are assumed to be normally distributed. With these input data, the graphical MFA model can be automatically translated into a mathematically model using the following equations: Balance equation : inputs outputs change in stock Transfer coefficient equation : output x transf er coef f icient to output x inputs 4 5
Stock equation : Stockperiodi1 Stockperiodi change in Stockperiodi 6 Concentration equation : masssubs tance massgood concentrationsubs tance :
Finally, STAN expresses the mass ows as Sankey arrows which are proportional to their mass ow values. In addition to performing dynamic MFA, STAN is also capable of evaluating the economic, resource and environmental value of the materials. 2.1.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of MFA models With respect to the scope, MFA models are not only restricted to ows within the region but also trace the ows beyond the boundary as far as they are relevant to regional activities thereby enabling the detection of unexpected side-effects within the region to other regions or other time periods. The dynamic approaches are more complicated than conventional methods as the temporal changes, transfer coefcient and economic conditions are involved as well. With quantitative MFA models becoming more accurate and advanced, they are likely to give more realistic pictures of the regional environmental status (e.g., nutrient ow, recycled water consumption and wastewater discharge). Yet the manipulation of sophisticated MFA models still provides a big challenge to decision
Table 1 Major environmental impact categories in LCA.a Type Squandering of resources Pollution Impact category or indicator Depletion of abiotic resources (DAR) Biotic resources Acidication potential (AP) Global warming potential (GWP) Eutrophication potential (EP) Photochemical oxidation (PHO) Ozone depletion potential (ODP) Ecotoxicity potential (ETP) Freshwater use (FWU) Cumulative energy demand (CED) Odour Noise Ecosystem and landscape Death Units kg antimony eq year 1 kg SO2 eq kg CO2 eq kg PO4 eq kg formed ozone kg CFC-11 eq kg 1,4-DCB eq m3 MJ m3 polluted air Pa2s m2s
Affection
a Modied from Andrae (2010), Pasqualino et al. (2010), Rebitzer et al. (2004), and Tukker (2000).
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Table 2 Purposes and major contents in each step of a LCA study on water reuse.a Steps Goal Functional unit Purposes and major contents
To evaluate the environmental impacts of the wastewater treatment technologies and their combinations To deliver a certain amount of recycled water produced at the WWTP for reuse applications, which enables comparison between different scenarios delivering the same amount of the water System boundary Phases that are considered: WWTP construction phase (Optional); WWTP operation phase and WWTP demolishment phase (Optional). Others need to be considered: materials, chemical additives, energy consumption, transport, etc. Life cycle inventory To quantify the environmental relevant inputs and outputs of all processes over the life cycle. Data can be collected from internal reports, personal analysis (LCI) interviews with WWTP staff or previous literature. The LCI databases have already been equipped in some LCA softwares (e.g., Gabi and Simapro). Life cycle impact To interpret the inventory results into their potential environmental impacts, such as GWP, EP, HTP, etc. assessment (LCIA) To integrate various types of impacts and express them as a single indicator Life cycle assessment Contribution analysis (to examine which process, substance and impact category is most important based on the LCI and LCIA) and interpretation (LCAI) Consistency check (to check whether the assumptions, methods, models and data are consistent with the goal and scope of the study) Completeness check (to check whether all processes and data are complete) Sensitivity/uncertainty analysis Conclusions and recommendations
a
Modied from Andrae (2010), Meneses et al. (2010), Sharaai et al. (2009), Suh et al. (2004), and Vlasopoulos et al. (2006).
As for Step 3, several LCIA methods (Table 3) are normally used to quantify the different environmental indicators. Dreyer et al. (2003) demonstrated that EDIP 97 and CML 2001 are both midpoint approaches, which showed only minor differences for most impact categories except for the ones that describe toxicity to humans and the ecosystems. The results of the Eco-indicator 99 and EDIP 97 reached opposite directions for some inventories as the former one is an end point method, where the patterns of most important contributors to the weighted and aggregated impact scores are quite different from EDIP 97. Both Dreyer et al. (2003) and another study by Renou et al. (2008) concluded that more work was required on human and ecosystem
toxicity indicators as LCIA methods did not converge toward similar results. Currently, by applying commercial LCA softwares such as Gabi and SimaPro, one can easily choose one or several different LCIA approaches (e.g., CML 2000, Eco-points 97, Eco-indicator 99, EDIP 97, LIME and USES-LCA) for assessment. Comparatively, EIO-LCA is an economic-based technique which is to capture all economic transactions, resource requirements and transportations to produce recycled water of certain quality and then calculate the associated environmental emissions and wastes (e.g., energy use, toxic air emissions and hazardous waste) in terms of economic expenditures. Furthermore, to overcome the disadvantages of conventional process-based and
Table 3 LCIA models and associated characteristics. LCIA methods CML 2000 Characteristics Advantages and disadvantages References Gawor (2009)
It is a mid-point approach Since the different substances can have considerable This method consists of characterisation, normalisation and evaluation steps. variation in the characterisation step, the resulting It focuses on two main classes of the environmental impact: the exhaustion effect scores may not be completely reliable. of raw materials and energy (abiotic and biotic resources) and pollution (focusing on GWP, ODP, ETP, HTP, smog, AP, EP, solids). Grouping and weighting were not included in this method. Eco-points 97 It is based on the critical targets derived from the Swiss policy and calculates It is detailed and substance-specic the impact assessment with a single score. It allows a comparative weighting and aggregation of various environmental Only a few impacts are assessed interventions by use of so-called eco-factors and evaluates emissions into air, water and top-soil/groundwater as well as energy sources One can choose different normalisation factor (normalisation based on target The end-point system is normally based on policy value or actual emission), so that different equations can be applied. levels instead of sustainability levels, which are usually a compromise between political and environmental considerations. Eco-indicator 99 It is an end-point approach, and weighting was Despite the simplicity, weighting was the key simplied using three points. problem. Nitrogen oxides are the main contributors for this method. EDIP 97 It is a thoroughly documented mid-point approach. It covers most of the emission-related impacts, resource use and working environment. The normalisation is based on person equivalents whereas the weighting is The updated version-EDIP 2003 covers a larger based on political reduction targets for environmental impacts. part of the impacts and lies closer to a damage-oriented approach. Ecotoxicity and human toxicity are modelled using a simple key-property approach where the most important fate characteristics are included in a simple modular framework. USES-LCA It is an integrated multimedia fate, exposure and effects model It is an easy-to-use model. It has been developed for use in risk assessment of non-polar organic Both midpoint and endpoint characterization chemicals as well as other substances such as metals factors are calculated. It contains a database of 3396 chemicals Apart from FAETP, MAETP and TEP are also addressed. It calculates characterisation factors for ETP and HTP on both the Various scenarios can be tested by changing midpoint and endpoint level scenario settings. Due to the large uncertainty of modelling metal behaviour in the environment, it involves testing the sensitivity of the metal characterisation factors
Gawor (2009)
Goedkoop et al. (2008)
Dreyer et al. (2003)
Dreyer et al. (2003) and van Zelm et al. (2009)
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EIO-LCA models, hybrid LCA has been developed over the years, which combines the accuracy of process-based LCA and the completeness of EIO-LCA (Mattila et al., 2010). 2.2.2. Application of LCA models on recycled water schemes Presently, some studies have applied these three types of LCA models in comparing different water resources in terms of energy consumption and environmental concerns. Pasqualino et al. (2010) pointed out that replacing both potable and desalinated water by recycled water for non-potable purposes (e.g., irrigation, industry, urban cleaning, re ghting, recreation and groundwater recharge) could result in lower environmental impacts for all selected impact categories, including AP, GWP, EP, PHO, DAR, ODP and ETP. Although the environmental impacts caused by tertiary treatment were higher than that of secondary treatment, they can be compensated for by signicant freshwater and energy savings. In a similar study by Meneses et al. (2010), apart from the above-mentioned strengths, the environmental benets of recycled water from reduced fertiliser requirements in agriculture were also demonstrated. Likewise, Stokes and Horvath (2006) compared recycled water with imported freshwater and desalinated water using a hybrid LCA model. The model was implemented in an Excel-based decision support tool named Water-Energy Sustainability Tool (WEST). In WEST, to minimise time and data requirements, EIO-LCA was adopted to determine the effects related to material acquisition, transformation and production whereas process-based LCA was used to assess the environmental effects of treatment system construction and operation. Several air emission indicators including GWP, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide were considered in the analysis. The study demonstrated that the environmental impacts were mainly dominated by energy consumption in the system operation. According to the cases studies on two California water utilities, desalination had 25 times larger energy demand and caused 218 times more emissions than freshwater importation and water recycling while freshwater importation raised concerns about reliability and environment protection. Overall, the recycled water for irrigation and commercial car washing was found to be more environmentally sustainable. The most distinct advantages of WEST were that it successfully incorporated EIO-LCA with process-based LCA and took into account the construction phase in addition to the operation phase. Stokes and Horvath (2009) further modied the previous study and veried the strengths of recycled water for non-potable uses (e.g., irrigation, commercial and industrial applications) over imported water, desalinated seawater and desalinated brackish groundwater in terms of energy consumption, air emission concerns, reliability, etc. Nevertheless, recycled water quality issues were not addressed in these two papers. Having recognised and conrmed the advantages of recycled water, other studies have also employed LCA models to select optimal wastewater treatment technologies or stages for recycled water planning in agriculture, industry and urban landscape irrigation or evaluate the environmental proles of existing WWTP (Gallego et al., 2008; Lim and Park, 2009; Romero-Hernandez, 2005; Vlasopoulos et al., 2006). Yet the full application of LCA in holistic recycled water scheme assessment is still quite limited. 2.2.2.1. Agricultural uses. Agricultural irrigation represents the largest use of recycled water throughout the world. LCA models, in this case, are proved to be helpful in initial water recycling planning and design, especially in some of the large-scale irrigation schemes in Australia, Europe and the Middle East. For instance, Ortiz et al. (2007) used a processed-based LCA in comparing four wastewater treatment scenarios, including Conventional Activated Sludge System (CAS), CAS-UF, external membrane bioreactor (MBR) and immersed MBR. The construction, operation and dismantlement phases of the plant were
considered in the system boundary and the airborne emissions were of prime concern. The results indicated an overall lower impact in CAS, followed by immersed MBR and external MBR. Additionally, when combining the treatment technologies with electricity production models (Table 4), CAS-Norwegian model demonstrated the lowest impact as renewable energies are much more environmental friendly in electricity production compared with fossil fuels and nuclear resources. On the other hand, the systems expect for CAS produced high efuent quality, which not only allowed the water to be safely reused in irrigation but also enabled other applications such as groundwater recharge, household and industrial uses. Thus, considering both environmental impact and water quality, immersed MBR coupled with the renewable energy consumption pattern was optimal. Nevertheless, this study did not take into account the environmental impacts on soil and water nor consider the toxic and health effects. To investigate the toxicity-related impacts of recycled water on agriculture, Muoz et al. (2009a) evaluated four water treatment and reuse scenarios, including no reuse, reuse without tertiary treatment, reuse after tertiary (ozonation) treatment and reuse after tertiary (ozonation and hydrogen peroxide) treatment. Two LCIA approaches (USES-LCA and EDIP 97) have been applied for evaluation. Both of them showed that water reuse scenarios with tertiary treatment were preferred and the ozonation approach arrived at lower toxicity score compared with the ozone-peroxide one. The study disregarded the EP potential and microbiological quality of recycled water. Besides, the environmental results with high uncertainty and signicant deviation (1.5 to 6 orders of magnitude) were also observed in USES-LCA. Yet, Meneses et al. (2010) found that chlorinationUV disinfection was superior over ozonation and ozonation-hydrogen peroxide systems in terms of AP, GWP, EP, PHO, DAR, ODP, FWU and CED, when considering tertiary treated water for agricultural and urban applications. They also indicated that winter climate conditions contributed to lower environmental impacts due to the changes in population habits, water quality and water use. Apart from processed-based LCA models, Tangsubkul et al. (2005b) initially used EIO-LCA to evaluate three treatment methods, including the CMF (Ozonation-MF-disinfection), MBR (MBR-RO) and Wastewater Stabilisation Pond (WSP) systems for irrigation purposes at the Rouse Hill residential area in Sydney, Australia (Fig. 4). With the assistance of Missing Inventory Estimation Tool (MIET) 2.0 and GaBi3 softwares, all ows associated with the construction activities of treatment options were converted into a monetary value per functional unit. The environmental impact categories in consideration were GWP, EP, HTP, FAETP, MAETP, TEP and salinisation potential (SP). The results revealed that MBR system could result in a low SP value but was likely to trigger soil dispersion. The WSP system was regarded as the most suitable option for irrigation applications if reductions to SP impact were made. Although MIET was proved to be an acceptable means of estimating the impacts caused by the construction phase of wastewater treatment, a major constraint is that since the MIET relies on the 1996 US Inputoutput table, the results might not be appropriate to other countries due to interindustry cost structure differences. 2.2.2.2. Industrial uses. Recycled water has been successfully applied to industry in Japan, the US, Canada and Germany since the Second
Table 4 Electricity production models and associated compositions.a Electricity production models European model French model Norwegian model Portuguese model
a
Thermal 43.3% 11.4% 0.5% 80.8%
Nuclear 40.3% 72.9% 0.3% 2.6%
Hydroelectric 16.4% 15.7% 99.2% 16.6%
Adapted from Ortiz et al. (2007).
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Raw wastewater Material production Material inputs Chemical dosing Treatment train Construction
Input
Chemical production
Recycled water
Output
System boundary
Sludge treatment
Waste
Biosolids final use
Landfill
Agricultural applications, such as bean, almond, apricot, plum and grape
Fig. 4. System boundary of LCA study on Rouse Hill water recycling scheme. Modied from Tangsubkul et al. (2005b).
World War for more than 70 years. Recently, industrial use is the third biggest contributor to recycled water consumption. The major industrial categories associated with substantial water consumption include cooling water, boiler feed water and industrial process water. In regard to cooling and boiler feed purposes, Vlasopoulos et al. (2006) investigated over 600 different treatment technology combinations on treating petroleum wastewaters for industrial and agricultural reuses. The study took into account the environmental impacts of different treatment options in terms of GWP, DAR, AP, EP and PHO during the construction and operation phase, using CML 2000 method. The optimal treatment technology combinations associated with four end uses are shown in Table 5. As can be seen, compared with two agricultural end uses (categories 1 and 2) where the crop products can be eaten raw, cooling and boiler feed water required lower water quality (categories 3 and 4). Specially, the cooling system allowed the use of three-staged treatment with more technology combinations due to lower water quality requirement for sodium. However, to select the optimal treatment technology for each treatment stage, the study highlighted that one should not only consider the involved environmental impacts but also the recycled water quality as well as indirect downstream benets to subsequent treatment stages. Jrgensen et al. (2004) studied six alternatives for water recycling and handling of associated residues at an industrial laundry company in Denmark. It was concluded that onsite wastewater reuse scenarios using UF or a bio-lter led to lower environmental impacts compared with current no reuse practice. As laundry process wastewater carried some pollutants (e.g., heavy metals), UF coupled with sludge vitrication was proved to be the optimal technology combination
in terms of lowest toxicity impact to the environment. The UF permeate could be safely reused in the washing process. The results demonstrated that LCA was able to identify the best treatment technologies as well as long-term environmental benets of water reuse in laundries. Moreover, Zhang et al. (2010) have adopted a hybrid model to measure the life cycle benet of treated water reuse in industrial and domestic applications as well as the corresponding life cycle energy consumption in the construction, operation and demolishment phases of the WWTP in Xi'an, China. When quantifying the environmental impacts of different treatment stages as equivalent energy consumption, the study employed the Eco-indicator 99 method. However, unlike processed-based LCA, the system boundary in this model was conned to the secondary and tertiary treatment units without any sub-boundary between them, which is capable of reducing the possible difculties in conventional approaches. The study indicated that energy consumption in operating the tertiary treatment (2065.28 10 9 kJ) can be signicantly compensated by life cycle benet of water reuse in terms of reduced wastewater discharge (74.2 10 9 kJ) and freshwater saving (1598.4 10 9 kJ). Although this study successfully linked the life cycle energy consumption with direct benets of recycled water reuse (e.g., wastewater reduction and freshwater saving), other indirect benets such as ecosystem protection and water cycle improvement were not considered. Besides, several important impact categories such as GWP, SP and ETP were not evaluated in the model. 2.2.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of LCA models Among three types of LCA models, process-based LCA is still the most widely used approach which allows for specic treatment
Table 5 Most environmentally friendly treatment technologies associated with different end use categories.a End uses Water quality requirement Best technology combinations (impact categories) MFORGRO (in EP) DAFCWLDMFRO (except EP) MFORGROION (in EP) DAFCWLDMFROION (except EP) DAFCWLDMFRO and MFORFRO DAFABSORG Descriptions and comments
(1) Barley-wheat
4-staged treatment (53 technology combinations can meet the requirement) 4-staged treatment (53 technology combinations can meet the requirement)
(2) Citrus
Although CWL reached higher environmental impact than ABS at secondary stage, it resulted in smaller design and lower energy consumption in subsequent treatments due to evaporation losses. ION was to achieve additional boron removal by 0.5 mg/L. ION only contributed to 1% of the overall environmental impact.
(3) Alfalfasorghum cottonrhodes-boiler feed (4) Cooling system feed
4-staged treatment (104 technology combinations can meet the requirement) 3-staged treatment (139 technology combinations can meet the requirement)
Although this end use required less stringent water quality, quaternary treatment was still needed to reduce the sodium concentration. Although SSF and DMF had better environmental performance than ORG in the treatment stage 3, they did not satisfy the required cooling water quality.
Abbreviations: DAF = Dissolved Air Flotation; CWL = Constructed Wetlands; ABS = Absorbents; DMF = Dual Media Filtration; MF = Microltration; ORG = Organoclay; RO = Reverse Osmosis; and ION = Ion Exchange. a Modied from Vlasopoulos et al. (2006).
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technology comparisons and selections for new equipment installations. As the international standards (ISO 14040 and 14044) regarding principles, frameworks and requirements and guidelines for process-based approach have already been clearly documented and the current commercial softwares (e.g., Gabi and SimaPro) tend to be more mature and robust in performing LCI and LCIA analyses, this method could be easily manipulated and give reliable and convincing results to decision makers. Besides, process-based LCA could also provide suggestions for future improvement and development since it is able to identify technology weak points in evaluation processes. Yet one of the most serious difculties is the choice of an appropriate system boundary. Some researches excluded the insignicant contributions within the system as considerable materials or processes can easily lead to an overwhelming number of inputs and outputs whereas others pointed out that such a narrow focus might ignore important effects and cause incorrect decisions (Hendrickson et al., 2011; Matthews, 2011). Moreover, this approach is time intensive and costly, especially in more complicated assessment. When a large variety of impact categories are required to be considered, much time will not only be consumed on emission classication and characterization, but also spent on normalisation and weighting processes to make the indicators dimensionless thereby enabling comparison and achieving an overall score. As the aggregation result is sensitive to the set of weights, the lack of detailed site data and decision makers' low condence on optimal weight assignment will reduce the reliability and robustness of the nal score due to involved uncertainties. The high prices of commercial softwares also limit the model popularisation to some extent. Additionally, it would be difcult to apply process-based LCA to newly developed treatment technologies when the relevant material and energy consumption are not available in LCI database. Comparatively, EIO-LCA approach overcomes the system boundary problem. Although the boundary is very broad and inclusive, the transactions and emissions of all processes among all phases are included. It is also relatively quick to be performed and has modest data requirements. This approach is ideal for comprehensive assessments and systems-level comparisons since all environmental ows have been converted into monetary values with an assumption of a proportional relationship between them thereby avoiding the tedious normalisation step. Unlike site-specic results from process-based LCA which sometimes involve a certain degree of condentiality, the EIO-LCA results could be reproducible and publicly available as they are economy-wide. However, as EIO-LCA must link physical units with monetary values, it mainly captures environmental impacts associated with raw material acquisition and construction stages of recycling facilities rather than downstream impacts (e.g., water reuse, waste recycling and end-of-life options). As a signicant amount of inputs are needed, lack of data sometimes hinders the complete assessment of environmental effects. It is also difcult to be applied to an open economy with substantial non-comparable imports. Besides, the uncertainties are likely to be high through indicator aggregation, monetary transactions between currencies and times and the possible use of outdated data on interactions and emissions (Hendrickson et al., 2006; McMichael, 2011; Stokes and Horvath, 2006). Hybrid LCA is regarded to be a state-of-the-art method, which involves the integration of more reliable bottom-up process-based LCA data into the comprehensive top-down EIO-LCA methods (Mattila et al., 2010). Although the hybrid approach can take advantage of both methods, the model tends to be complicated and hard to be understood or manipulated by decision makers in a short time. Another signicant issue in hybrid LCA is to avoid double counting. Simply adding the results of a process-based LCA and an EIO-LCA of the same system will erroneously cause the system components modelled twice. Furthermore, some practical limitations of this method (e.g., model structure variation, methodology uncertainties, data completeness, software deciency, etc.) also exist (Rowley et al., 2009).
2.3. Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) When considering the introduction of recycled water to local areas or the expansion of current recycling schemes, most of risk assessment studies have been devoted to human health risk assessment (HRA) with implications from pathogens (Donald et al., 2009; Hamilton et al., 2007; Westrell et al., 2004) or chemicals (Cao et al., 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2006). Various existing national recycled water guidelines also mainly focus on the potential risks from pathogens and there is little mention of other trace pollutants. Nevertheless, from an environmental perspective, chemical pollutants in recycled water (e.g., excessive pharmaceuticals and xenobiotic compounds) to receiving ecosystems could be the rst targets. Even if the scheme (e.g., agricultural and landscape irrigation, environmental and recreational impoundment ows and groundwater recharge) is conducted far away from human targets or activity zones, it can induce environmental burdens unintentionally when the recycled water quality is unacceptable (Corwin and Bradford, 2008; Fatta-Kassinos et al., 2011b; Tiruta-Barna et al., 2007). The potential environmental risks resulted from water reuse projects include (Urkiaga et al., 2008): Substantial alteration of land use; Conict with the land use plans or policies regulations; Adverse impact on wetlands; Affection of endangered species or their habitat; Populations displacement or alteration of existing residential areas; Antagonistic effects on a ood-plain or important farmlands; Adverse effect on parklands, reserves, or other public lands designated to be of scenic, recreational, archaeological, or historical value; Signicant contradictory impact upon ambient air quality, noise levels, surface or groundwater quality or quantity; Substantial adverse impacts on water supply, sh, shellsh, wildlife, and their actual habitats. Due to the above concerns, ERA evaluates the ecological risk impacts of environmental changes or multiple stressors in relevant system boundary over long periods. It integrates ecology, environmental chemistry, environmental toxicology, geochemistry and other fundamental sciences in characterising the impacts of natural and man-made disturbances on ecological resources (Bartell, 2008). Particularly, for agricultural and landscape irrigation uses, concerns should be given to inorganic species in recycled water (e.g., sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride and bromide, and trace heavy metals). Owing to high solubility, they are too difcult to be treated by membrane processes, not to mention advanced oxidation processes and traditional biological treatment. For this reason, their potential risks to the environment have been reported as highly saline irrigation water can severely degrade the soil and the accumulation of heavy metals in soil can pose threats to food chain. Situations may be even worse in dry climates since the concentrations of salts in drainage can be much higher due to evaporation, posing potential threats to groundwater quality. Apart from inorganic chemicals, the trace organic pollutants (e.g., pharmaceutical active compounds, endocrine disrupting compounds, antibiotics and xenobiotics) are also important substances as industrial and technological advances in production of chemicals have outpaced the regulatory practices (Bolong et al., 2009; Meisel et al., 2009; Fatta-Kassinos et al., 2011a, 2011b). Due to high hydrophilicity and low adsorption ability, they are poorly removed by conventional activated sludge and are likely to cause adverse biological effects in organisms at part per trillion concentrations (Weber et al., 2006). For instance, Gagne et al. (2006) demonstrated that redox properties of some pharmaceuticals could inuence the hepatocyte oxidative metabolism of rainbow trouts as well as the plant growth and plant
22
microorganism symbiosis. Besides, these organic compounds can transport via recycled water and exhibit a signicant cumulative effect on the ecosystem. Karnjanapiboonwong et al. (2011) found that pharmaceuticals in recycled water during land application transported both vertically and horizontally in the soil and eventually reached groundwater at West Texas, the US. In another study by Drewes et al. (2002), antiepileptic drugs (e.g., carbamazepine and primidone) showed persistent during travel times of more than 6 years in the subsurface where secondary and tertiary treated efuents were recharged for indirect potable reuse purposes. Al-Rifai et al. (2007) also reported the high concentrations of pharmaceutical compounds through partitioning to soil and possibly plants over long periods at the Gerringong Gerroa Sewage Scheme in southeast Australia. Fig. 5 gives general steps in performing ERA where the environmental risk of particular compound should be carefully identied and characterised unless sufciently low concentrations are observed. Once the requirements from risk managers and decision makers are fullled and documented, the processes end (Bartell, 2008; Carlsson et al., 2006). 2.3.1. Types of ERA models Despite of difculties, numerous ERA models have been increasingly developed, which are proved to be quite useful when empirical measurements of toxic effects are unavailable, measured values are scarce or the exposure level is being projected into the future (Lee et al., 2007). The simplest ERA approaches normally apply chemical analytical instruments such as atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP), liquid chromatography (LC), gas chromatography (GC) or mass spectrometry (MS) to determine the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) of the pollutant and then compare it with the predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) guideline value so as to arrive at the potential risk. Comparatively, instead of using costly detection instruments, some ERA models estimated the PEC using mathematical equations, which are based on initial pollutant concentration, percentage removal rate, dilution factor and the volume of recycled water. Others more complicated approaches even take into account biodegradation effect of the substance during environmental exposure. On the other hand, some studies also adopted empirical models in PNEC calculation when relevant data were not available. For example, the ecological structure activity relationship (ECOSAR) model has been routinely used by US EPA, which is able to calculate the unknown aquatic toxicities of organic pollutant from the structure activity relationships (SAR) of other similar compounds with known
environmental toxicities. The SARs are based on test data and express the correlations between a compound's physical and/or chemical properties and its aquatic toxicity. Thus, toxicity values of the pollutant under study can be calculated by inserting the estimated octanol water coefcients (Kow) into the regression equation and correcting the resultant value for molecular weight of the compound (Jones et al., 2002). 2.3.2. Application of ERA models on recycled water schemes 2.3.2.1. Agricultural uses. ERA models are widely used to evaluate the potential effects of waterborne hazards on soil and surrounding groundwater quality for several agricultural recycled water schemes. Regarding inorganic chemicals, Xu et al. (2010) observed the long term (3, 8 and 20 years) recycled water irrigation (56.78 ML/d, processed by primary sedimentation and oxidation pond) on agricultural soils for plots growing trees and feed crops at Palmdale, California, the US. Despite the benets of nutrients and fresh water saving, the ICP analytical results showed that trace metals include Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn in the upper horizons were accumulated over years, which eventually deteriorated the soil and groundwater quality. A similar study by Li et al. (2009) using AAS indicated that although irrigating with poorly treated industrial wastewater at Zhangshi irrigation area in Shenyang, China has been ceased since 1992, the Zn, Pb and Cu concentrations were still higher than or close to China's grade A standard due to 30 years' accumulation effects. Thus, the place should be abandoned for cultivated crops and bioremediation or other measures should be carried out. Likewise, Katz et al. (2009) reported the elevation of nitrate, boron and chloride concentrations in groundwater samples from the Sprayeld aquifer, where secondary treated municipal wastewater was supplied for agricultural irrigation. Peasey et al. (2000) and Jimenez and Asano (2008) also found a correlation of risk problems with the proximity to farms where recycled water had been applied. Furthermore, Muoz et al. (2009b) used a more complicated ERA model in risk characterization of heavy metals as well as pharmaceuticals in recycled water for agricultural irrigation. An ERA framework for screening environmental risks in terrestrial ecosystem is depicted in Fig. 6. Both the risk exposure to soil organisms (PECsoil) and second poisoning to top predators via terrestrial food chain (PECpredator) were quantied by the European Commission Technical Guidance Document on Risk Assessment and the level III fugacity model while PNEC values were derived from the ECOSAR software.
Description of the potential sources (e.g. greywater, municipal and industrial wastewaters) Identification of the undesired ecological impacts in relation to the sources (e.g. adverse impacts on wetlands, endangered species and residential areas) Conduct of risk assessment (conceptual, qualitative and quantitative approaches) Collaboration among risk assessors, risk managers, stakeholders, concerned members of the public and other organisations Establishment of risk control and risk management approaches Quantitative assessment
Exposure assessment, in which the predicted environmental concentrations (PEC) of the pollutants of concern are determined for different compartments (e.g. soil and freshwater)
Effects assessment, where a dose-response relationship is established, involving the determination of a predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC)
Risk characterisation, which involves calculating the risk quotients (RQ). RQ = PEC/PNEC, where a value above 1 means that adverse effects are likely to occur
Fig. 5. Steps in performing ERA. Referred from Bartell (2008) and Muoz et al. (2009b).
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Experimental work Wastewater effluent sampling Definition of target substances Data collection Substance-independent data: -Environmental parameters -Exposure parameters Chemical analysis Effluent concentrations
Exposure assessment (modelling) Volatilisation Degradation Irrigation Leaching Soil Bio-concentration PEC soil PEC worm RCR soil PNEC soil PNEC oral RCR predator
Effects assessment
Substance-dependent data: -Physical-chemical properties -Toxicological properties
Fig. 6. Proposed framework for screening environmental risks related to wastewater reuse. Adapted from Muoz et al. (2009b).
The case studies on 27 pollutants in secondary treated efuents from two Spanish WWTPs showed that both plants were likely to cause adverse effects on agriculture soil and predators. The nickel concentrations in recycled water from the Alcala de Henares WWTP which receives a mixture of domestic and industrial wastewater were toxic to soil and predators whereas pharmaceuticals (sulfamethoxazole, ciprooxacin, diclofenac, gembrozil and erythromycin) in both efuents posed high risks on soil compared with diclofenac in efuents on predators. Thus, additional treatments with membrane ltration, advanced oxidation and UV disinfection were recommended. With respect to pharmaceuticals, the experimental and predicted sludgewater partition coefcients have been observed to be different by several orders of magnitude (Jones et al., 2002; StuerLauridsen et al., 2000). Hence, Lindberg et al. (2007) still used the instrumental methods (ultrasonic-assisted liquid/solid extraction and LCMS/MS) to investigate the concentrations of noroxacin and ciprooxacin in dewatered wastewater sludge and pellets. The leaching tests demonstrated that these compounds had limited mobility as the accepting aqueous phases contained less than 1% of the pharmaceutical concentrations that were initially found in solid phases. Consequently, they would not affect groundwater quality if the wastewater sludge is reused as fertiliser in agricultural soil. 2.3.2.2. Environmental and recreational uses. To release reliable environmental and recreational ows and protect the downstream health of rivers, many ERA studies have been conducted with a focus on pharmaceuticals in recycled water. For instance, Stuer-Lauridsen et al. (2000) investigated 25 pharmaceuticals in Denmark under worst case scenarios where all sold pharmaceuticals were assumed to be used evenly at temporal and spatial scale in the same year and then released to the sewage system without any attenuation. Accordingly, PECs were calculated as follows: PECw A 100R 365 P V D 100 8
default safety factor of 1000. Finally, high risks were observed on acetylsalicylic acid, paracetamol and ibuprofen while low risks were achieved for oestrogen, diazepam and digoxin. Although the mathematical PEC model is easy to perform, lack of chronic toxicity data for PNECs is the prime obstacle in the study. To partially solve this problem, Jones et al. (2002) used the ECOSAR model in PNEC estimation when assessing the top 25 English prescription pharmaceuticals to the aquatic environment. Four types of pharmaceuticals including mefenamic acid, oxytetracycline, paracetamol and amoxicillin were shown to be of high risk. Nonetheless, risk quotients (RQs) of the pharmaceuticals might be overestimated in both studies since the worst case scenarios were adopted in calculating PECs as well as acute ecotoxicity data in quantifying PNEC. Additionally, Carlsson et al. (2006) have made some improvements in estimating PECs of 27 pharmaceuticals in Sweden. More specically, PECs were rstly calculated under worst case assumptions using Eq. (9) and then rened by a Simple Treat 3.1 model to reect local realistic environmental conditions. To trace the steady-state pharmaceutical concentrations in recycled water, sludge or air, the model requires the input of several physicalchemical parameters (e.g., molecular weight, Kow, vapour pressure, water solubility, dilution factor, degradation rates and acidbase dissociation constants). Owing to limited biodegradation data, the degradation rate was assumed to be 0.1/h for paracetamol but zero for others. In regard to PNECs, when toxicities of the chemicals were known, they could be derived from the lowest available acute values to organisms (e.g., LC50 of sh, EC50 of daphnia and IC50 of algae) divided by an assessment factor of 1000. Otherwise, the ECOSAR model should be applied. Overall, nine substances were considered to be dangerous while only oestradiol and ethinyloestradiol were likely to cause long term adverse effects to the aquatic compartment. Despite the consideration of local conditions in PEC estimation, most RQ values were overestimated as chronic toxicity data were only available for 4 substances. DOSEai Fpen WASTEWinhab DILUTION 100
PECsurface where A is the amount used per year (kg/yr), R is the removal in percent (set to zero), P is the number of inhabitants in Denmark (5,200,000 in 1997), V is the volume of wastewater per day per capita (0.2 m 3) and D is the dilution factor in the environment (a default value of 10 is used). The calculated PECs were generally consistent with actual measured pharmaceutical concentrations. On the other hand, as ecotoxicity data were only available for 6 compounds, the corresponding PNECs were derived on the basis of Europe draft guideline document for medicinal products for human use with a
water
where DOSEai is the highest recommended daily dose of the pharmaceuticals in question, and Fpen is the percentage of market penetration. WASTEWinhab is the amount of wastewater used per inhabitant per day and DILUTION is the dilution of sewage water in surface water. Furthermore, Escher et al. (2011) proposed another ERA approach for pharmaceuticals from hospital wastewater which might be
24
directly discharged to surface waters or inltrated. The detailed PEC calculations under four scenarios were shown in Table 6. PNECs were estimated from acute toxicity (EC50) values divided by 1000. The EC50 values were derived from Eqs. (10)(12), where Dlipw values refer to the liposome-water distribution coefcients at pH 7 and are available in literature. For green algae : log1=EC50 M 0:95 logDlipw pH 7 1:53 10
For water flea : log1=EC50 M 0:90 logDlipw pH 7 1:61 11 For fish : log1=EC50 M 0:81 logDlipw pH 7 1:65: 12
The RQs of Top-100 pharmaceuticals in Switzerland from the general hospital and psychiatric centre were then calculated under all scenarios. The results demonstrated that for chemicals with RQHWW > 1, the dilution effect signicantly decreased the RQ values (RQWWTP inuent b 1) and even had better performance than the actual elimination in WWTP. However, it is not the real fact as clotrimazole and ritonavir were found to be highly removed (>80%) in biological treatment. Due to lack of data, no elimination in WWTP was assumed for 55 and 66 pharmaceuticals in the general hospital and psychiatric centre respectively, which might introduce biases to the nal conclusions. Overall, the study allows setting priorities risks for further testing and the related equations are also good references for other ERA studies. Another study by Lee et al. (2008) assessed the environmental risks of most concerned antibiotics at the Gapcheon WWTP in Daejeon, Korea. The exposure doses of the chosen 13 antibiotics were estimated by a Korea ecological risk assessment (KOREOCORisk) model. The model consists of a release rate estimation module, an exposure estimation module and an ERA module. The release rate and biodegradation removal efciencies of the WWTP were taken into account in the release rate estimation module whereas the multimedia fate model rather than dilution factor was applied for calculating the site specic regional PECs in the exposure estimation module. Comparatively, PNECs were collected from open literature, review, the ECOTOX database or calculated from the ECOSAR model. The model outcomes indicated that RQs of amoxicillin and erythromycin were 151 and 3, respectively, which may chronically degrade the Korean aquatic environment. Lee et al. (2007) also veried the effectiveness of KOREOCORisk in setting management priority among industrial chemicals in the aquatic environment. Nevertheless, the calculations inside the model are complicated which involves calling sub-models and the uncertainties vary greatly (10 to 10 3). 2.3.3. Characteristics and weaknesses of ERA models According to the above studies, ERA models were able to identify the environmental risks of most inorganic and trace organic
compounds in recycled water. Some models address only one or a few of numerous components of the physical processes regarding hazard exposure and degradation, while others attempt to take more comprehensive forms. However, some weaknesses still exist that are needed to be modied and avoided. For instance, apart from instrumental methods, most of PEC values were calculated based on worst case scenarios so that the RQs are likely to be overestimated. To arrive at more accurate and reliable PEC values, more data should be collected regarding the chemical metabolism, spreading routes, environmental biodegradation, bioaccumulation potential, partitioning characteristics, human use patterns, wastewater treatment and catchment conditions. Meanwhile, if data on site-specic conditions are available, several models such as Simple Treat, Pharmaceutical Assessment and Transport Evaluation and Geo-referenced Regional Exposure Assessment Tool for European Rivers can be further applied to rene the PECs towards more realistic. As for PNECs, current ecotoxicity tests rely solely on limited aquatic organisms (e.g., daphnia and algae) which can not represent ecotoxicological responses of the whole ecosystem. Besides, most of ecotoxicity tests are based on acute responses and are not able to reect the potential chronic effects following long term exposure to subacute levels. Although the acute to chronic ratios are available for several substances, they are empirical and sometimes the potency to cause chronic ecotoxic effects is not correlated with potency to cause acute effects. Moreover, since pharmaceuticals mostly exist as complex mixtures, synergistic effects may occur. For example, clobric acid combined with carbamazepine as well as diclofenac combined with ibuprofen exhibited a much stronger toxic effect than the sum of their individual effects (Cleuvers, 2003). Consequently, future work should address these difculties and create a preliminary risk assessment database where the different grades of recycled water versus corresponding environmental risks are claried. A risk ranking of a series of hazardous compounds that may threaten the environment should also be established (Carlsson et al., 2006; Cooper et al., 2008; Jones et al., 2002). Overall, as recycled water end uses are increasingly being expanded, ERA will play a more and more important part and if possible, it should be carried out together with additional technical, social and economical assessments to form a holistic recycled water sustainability analysis (Fig. 7) (Benetto et al., 2007; Claassen, 1999). 3. Integrated assessment tools on recycled water schemes In most cases, it is difcult to model or analyse all accumulative and interactive environmental effects of different activities from a single assessment tool as each approach evaluates the recycling project in different ways. For example, MFA can be seen as an effective tool for the early recognition of environmental sanitation problems as well as the assessment of control measures. It allows decision makers to obtain a rst efcient screening of potential
Table 6 Hospital wastewater treatment scenarios and associated PEC calculations.a Option 1 Descriptions Risk potential of wastewater from the hospital main wing, before discharging to the sewer (full risk potential without any degradation or dilution) Risk potential at inlet of the WWTP (reduction of risk potential through dilution in sewers) Risk potential at outlet of the WWTP (reduction of risk potential through degradation and sorption processes with dilution in sewers) Risk potential at the hospital main wing after hypothetical conventional biological treatment (reduction of risk potential through degradation and sorption process without dilution) Equations for PEC calculation
excreted PECHWW MfHWW V
n P i1
mi
n P i1
Ui mUi df PECHWW f e PECWWTP f e PECHWW
2 3 4
PECWWTP PECWWTP PECWWTP
inf luent effluent
influent
effluent
PECHWW was the concentration of active ingredient expected in hospital wastewater. M is the amount of each active ingredient consumed in the hospital. It was summed up from all amounts mi of active ingredient consumed in the different drug preparations. mi can be derived from the units consumed for each drug preparation, Ui, and the amount of active ingredient contained in each unit, mUi. df was the dilution factor in the sewer and assumed to be 0.013. fe referred to the fraction eliminated in the treatment plant. a Modied from Escher et al. (2011).
25
ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY
ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENTAL FAILURE ECONOMICAL LOSSES TECHNICAL FAILURE
TECHNICAL VIABILITY
ENGINEERING
Risks
ECONOMY
ECONOMIC EFFECTIVENESS
SOCIAL DISRUPTION SOCIETY
SOCIAL EQUITY
Fig. 7. Risks and objectives for sustainable water reuse. Adapted from Urkiaga et al. (2008).
environmental effects. This could be vital important in the holistic recycled water sustainability analysis. When the current local environmental sanitation condition is predicted to be sustainable with no changes required, there would be no need to conduct further assessments or actions, saving lots of time and energy. On the other hand, if the environment situation is proved to be unsustainable, the MFA model can be executed again under different environmental management scenarios and the effectiveness of water recycling and reuse in sanitation improvement could be veried eventually. Once the importance of recycled water has been increasingly noticed by decision makers, more and more recycling schemes together with detailed sustainability assessments are likely to be developed and implemented. In some developed countries with a large number of recycling schemes being successfully conducted, the signicance of water reuse has already been widely recognised. MFA, in this case, could be regarded as an optional tool in the holistic decision making of existing or future recycled water projects. Comparatively, LCA is a non-site-specic analysis. Although it is conceived to carry out detailed and complex analyses, it has broader ambitions and gives overall environmental results as both the input and output related interventions are considered and all the releases of different substances (e.g., CO2 for the whole life cycle) to the environmental media (e.g., air, soil or water bodies) could be summarised. It can be regarded as an important tool in the context of holistic recycled water sustainability analysis since the selection of an appropriate treatment technology (or technology combination) could not merely benet the local environment directly but also guide the downstream water quality assessment as well as end use consideration. However, it would be unnecessary to carry out comprehensive LCA assessment in most recycling schemes which normally involves a number of different types of environmental impact categories. To save time and cost for the whole sustainability decision making process, the assessment categories in LCA should be narrowed down after considering the potential downstream end uses in initial recycled water project planning. For example, when the recycled water is planned for irrigation uses, more concerns should be given to the potential environmental impacts on soil and groundwater (e.g., EP, SP, HTP and TEP). Other impact categories related to air quality (e.g., GWP, AP, PHO and ODP) might be more important for industrial applications of recycled water. Yet although the insignicant categories have been
excluded, some difculties may still hamper the quantication of environmental effects in LCA, including the subjectivity in calculation, lack of consideration on alternatives, politicisation of assessment processes and competence of involved authorities (Asano et al., 2007; Pasqualino et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2010). Moreover, additional benets (e.g., water quality improvement, fertiliser consumption reduction and saltwater intrusion prevention) should be further claried in downstream studies. Besides, ERA mainly evaluates the environmental impacts in a site-specic way, which considers the possible releases of a single substance from the different sources and tries to predict the risks of ecotoxicity-related impacts from that particular substance. In the holistic recycled water sustainability analysis, ERA models could be adopted to investigate the particular inorganic and trace organic compounds of concern so as to address the output-related environmental interventions caused by different recycled water end uses. This could provide useful information for decision makers to adopt further management strategies in recycling schemes. When these different types of tools can be linked together, a broader set of critical environmental issues could be encompassed in study and the weaknesses of individual tools might be compensated for in analysis progress (Sanne and Widheden, 2005; Udo de Haes et al., 2006; Wrisberg and Udo de Haes, 2002). The integrated approaches have already been reported in several studies. 3.1. MFA coupled with LCA As MFA has been successfully applied in the early recognition of environmental problems, it is possible to be regarded as a prerequisite for the implementation of LCA. Instead of evaluating a wide range of environmental impact categories, LCA, in this circumstance, can focus on the impacts associated with one or several particular elements which are tracked by MFA, saving lots of evaluation time and energy. Thus, the Organic Waste Research model (ORWARE) is developed to calculate material ows and energy turn over for various treatment alternatives and transfer the results into environmental effects using LCA methodology. A total of 43 different substances are considered in the model, where the related transformation, transportation, energy and other external resource consumption can be simulated. As can be seen in Fig. 8, the ow data generated
26
Input data
ORWARE SIMULINK Model
Output data
Factor Matrix
Effect Categories
Fig. 8. Simplied diagram of the ORWARE methodology. Adapted from Ramrez et al. (2002).
by ORWARE is aggregated in a form of effect categories, which indicate the level of environmental damage and resource consumption in terms of emissions to air and water, accumulation in landll, ow of recycled products, etc. This static model can be further divided into several sub-models (e.g., WWTP, incineration, landll, compost, anaerobic digestion, truck transports), where WWTP model is one of the most important ones which is to calculate the emissions and energy from wastewater treatment and reuse. Besides, as ORWARE itself is rather general, other new sub-models can be easily incorporated into the system. Nevertheless, most sub-models are empirical and fail to consider the site-specic conditions (e.g., geographical, industrial and social factors). Hence, advanced recalibration is required whenever necessary (Dalemo et al., 1997; Sonesson et al., 1997). More specically, Jeppsson and Hellstrom (2002) used ORWARE model to evaluate two fundamentally different urban water systems in Sweden. One is a centralised system while the other one equips source separation of stormwater, greywater, black water and urine together with onsite treatment facilities. To effectively analyse these two systems, several parameters (e.g., COD fractions, exergy, PO4, particulate P, particulate N, potassium, cadmium, etc.) that are closely related to the environmental performance were modelled. The schematic material ows are illustrated in Fig. 9. Overall, the centralised system was more environmentally friendly in terms of total P to water, cooper to water and cadmium to arable soil whereas the source-separated system was better in regard to total N to water, fresh water
consumption and net energy consumption. Similarly, ORWARE has also been applied to urban water systems in Chile by Ramrez et al. (2002). To compare 8 different management scenarios which are different combinations of wastewater treatment (biological vs. chemical), sludge treatment (digestion vs. composting) and disposal (landll vs. agriculture reuse), ve environmental impact categories were considered, including GWP, EP, pathogenic organisms, emissions of heavy metals and toxic organic substances and energy use or production. The results indicated that the biological/composting/ agriculture reuse scenario achieved an overall lowest environmental impact except for EP. Regarding the pathogen reduction in recycled water, both chemical precipitation and biological treatment were good enough for treated efuent discharging into the sea while additional disinfection was needed in the case of efuent to rivers. The efuent could not be reused in agriculture as concentrations of toxic substances were too high. 3.2. LCA coupled with ERA There has been effort to partially or fully incorporate ERA within a LCA approach in some of research areas, such as electronics, nanomaterials and mineral waste reuse scenarios (Montangero et al., 2006a; Socolof and Geibig, 2006; Sweet and Strohm, 2006). Overall, by linking LCA and ERA within the same toolbox, the whole of a material's life cycle risk can be considered in an integrated manner, thereby promoting continuous improvement as well as proactive risk reduction and adaptive approaches under current situations. However, Udo de Haes et al. (2006) pointed out that the implementation of a combined approach required a careful study on similarities, differences and synergisms between LCA and ERA. Although the full integration was recommended, it was not achieved in practice due to the fundamentally different model structure (the use of the functional unit concept in LCA versus the use of ows of actual size in ERA). The use of the two tools in a combined form has not been reported in water recycling eld. Yet it is possible to use ERA as a more detailed and site-specic analysis after an LCA has been carried out. 3.3. Multi-criteria decision making To achieve a more systematic and holistic analysis, the outputs from MFA, LCA and ERA models could be further combined with additional qualitative or quantitative measures (e.g., economic and social assessments). Fig. 10 shows a multi-criteria decision making framework for recycled water schemes based on the characteristics of individual and integrated assessment tools. When multiple conicting criteria (e.g., technical, environmental, economic and social issues) are taken into account, the following procedure in Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) is to investigate the trade-off among these selected criteria and then arrive at the best solution under certain mathematical algorithms (e.g., multi attribute utility theory, goal programming, compromise programming, analytical hierarchy process, ELECTRE I-III, PROMETHEE and cooperative game theory). With an overall result in terms of feasibility, reliability and affordability of the recycled water scheme, MCA can provide a powerful guidance for sustainable water recycling management in the long term. It is also possible to suggest how much a successful strategy could benet the decision maker in water reuse planning and expansion. With these highly persuasive data, the public acceptability on recycled water
(a)
Drinking water production Households Stormwater
WWTP
Incineration
Landfill
Spreading and soil
(b)
Drinking water production Households Stormwater
Urine collection and storage Incineration Landfill
Anaerobic digestion
WWTP
Spreading and soil
Fig. 9. Principle material ows (e.g., N, P, K and Cd) through the combined system (a) and source-separated system (b). Adapted from Jeppsson and Hellstrom (2002).
27
Integrated water reuse planning and expansion Use of Material Flow Analysis (MFA) as an initial screening in understanding the environmental sanitation conditions at local region Environment sustainable
Actions not required
Environment not sustainable Proposal of improved management strategies and verify the effectiveness of water recycling and reuse using MFA Use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to analyse different wastewater treatment technologies with respect to their environmental effects Optimal treatment combinations Application of Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) on different grades of recycled water for various end uses Economic considerations Multi-criteria decision making of recycled water schemes Human health risk considerations
Fig. 10. Outline of the multi-criteria decision making framework for recycled water schemes.
Social considerations
applications can also be greatly improved and the potential recycled water markets can be further expanded. 3.3.1. Economic assessment More specically, the economic assessment of recycling schemes is often carried out by a cost-benet analysis, which should not only include the internal impacts (capital, operating and maintenance costs and the price of recycled water) but also external impacts of an environmental or social nature. The prime objective is to maximise the total benets, which is the difference between income and costs (Eq. (13)). MaxBT BI BE OC 13
initiatives while others have received public participation in the form of investment subsidies, long-term loans or interest rebates. Operating and maintenance costs. The costs include water treatment, storage systems and pressure maintenance, water quality monitoring and life cycle costs (Urkiaga et al., 2008). Taxes. Taxes should also be considered if the scheme attracts tax (Godfrey et al., 2009). To ensure the internal benet, Urkiaga et al. (2006) have specied a minimum capacity of the agricultural scheme, which is to serve 10,00020,000 inhabitant equivalents, or to irrigate a golf course and/ or a crop extension of 3,500,000 m 2. They also indicated that two or more different types of treatments and end uses are more economically suitable than a single option. While the internal impacts can be calculated directly in terms of monetary units, there are a series of external inuences where no explicit market exists. Hence, external benet is to capture the most tangible and measurable ones and quantify the available aspects based on hypothetical scenarios or patterns observed in related markets. For instance, Godfrey et al. (2009) identied the health benets of greywater reuse from reduced number of diarrhoeal cases, work/school absenteeism avoided, etc. Besides, the opportunity cost is normally estimated by an alternative use of the land with certain protability (Hernndez et al., 2006). 3.3.2. Social assessment The considerations in social assessment include aboriginal and heritage, aesthetics, trafc disruption, public attitude and political impacts (Muthukaruppan et al., 2011). As the principal target is to ensure the smooth develop of recycling schemes with maximum benets, public acceptance is highly addressed, which is being recognised as the main ingredient of success for any recycling project. Dolniar and Saunders (2005) concluded that the acceptance of recycled water was correlated with a high level of education, followed by being in the younger age category, while income and gender appeared signicant in only one third of the studies. Hurlimann (2007)
where BT = total benet (total income total costs), BI = internal benet (internal income internal costs), BE = external benet (positive externalities negative externalities), and OC = opportunity cost. Internal income can be earned by multiplying the selling price of recycled water and the volume obtained. In Australia, to encourage the usage of recycled water, its price is currently set at approximately 75% of the drinking water price, which is much lower than the real cost of providing recycled water (Hurlimann and McKay, 2007; MacDonald and Dyack, 2004). However, the interaction of willingness to adopt recycled water and pricing strategies still has not reached a conclusive result so far (Dolniar and Saunders, 2006). Future pricing strategies should be based on costs as well as include the value of recycled water itself, its environmental effects and its own opportunity cost. The internal costs consist of: Investment costs. Investment costs account for 4575% of the total cost of a recycling project, which include land, civil works, machinery and equipment, distribution facilities and connection works (Hernndez et al., 2006). Financial costs. Financial costs result from nancing the investment. Some projects have been state-nanced or funded by private
28
indicated that males had more knowledge about recycled water and were more supportive than females. McKay and Hurlimann (2003) predicted that the greatest opposition to water recycling schemes would be people aged 50 years and over. Po et al. (2003) suggested that there are many other factors inuencing the acceptance, including the disgust emotion, perceptions of risk from recycled water, sources of recycled water, specic uses of recycled water, trust of authorities and knowledge, attitudes towards the environment, environmental justice issues, the cost of recycled water and socio-demographic factors. The perception of risks from the use of recycled water are related to health, foremost among people's worries are the safety of their children. The higher water quality such as low salt, colourless and odourless could contribute to the increased acceptability (Hurlimann and McKay, 2007). Respondents were most willing to pay for quality increases of recycled water when used for clothes washing. Nonpotable reuse carries the least public health risk and the public supports for agriculture, golf courses, parks and industries are generally high. Recycled water use inside the home was less preferred, where more than 70% of the respondents agreed to use it for toilet ushing, gardens and car washing but only 60% and 13% supported for washing clothes and lling swimming pools respectively (Pham et al., 2011). There are greater concerns on Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR) and Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) projects due to health issues.
Table 7 Management approaches in sustainability improvement of particular end uses. Possible end uses Agricultural irrigation (pastures and fodder crops) Solutions
Encouragingly, Lampard et al. (2010) reported that 74% of 3000 respondents across ve Australian capital cities expressed their willingness to drink recycled water if they could be assured of its safety. Apart from water quality improvement, public participation may also play an important role in enhancing the public accountability and thus acceptability of recycled water schemes. It can occur through education, information dissemination, advisory or review boards, public advocacy, public hearings and submissions and even litigation (Richardson and Razzaque, 2006). Pham et al. (2011) suggested informing people about the different benets and terms of recycled water as well as continuously seeking feedback from the community whereas Hurlimann (2007) believed that authorities should focus on gaining the community's trust. A willingness to use model constructed by Menegaki et al. (2007) also indicated that information and education might be useful tools in making people realise the benets of recycled water, allowing them to pass from negative to positive attitudes. On the contrary, based on Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour, Po et al. (2005) developed a model to examine participant's behavioural responses to recycled water. The model on an IPR case study at the Managed Aquifer Recharge Scheme in Perth, Western Australia, showed that knowledge and risk perceptions were not dominant in inuencing behavioural intentions to drink the recycled water. Nevertheless, the
References Al-Hamaiedeh and Bino (2010) and Shanahan and Boland (2008)
Landscape and garden irrigation
Environmental ows and recreational impoundments
Industry
Toilet ushing
Car washing
Selection of advanced irrigation methods (e.g., drip or sub-surface irrigation) Extension of the withholding period Increase of capital costs Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., occulation and disinfection) Signage Increase of maintenance costs Modied working hours Soil amendments (e.g., acid or gypsum injection) Selection of advanced irrigation methods Increase of droplet size of the water Extension of the withholding period Increase of capital costs Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., occulation and disinfection) Signage and fencing Staff access protection Increase of maintenance costs Small absorbers for odour control Modied working hours and public access control Soil amendments (e.g., acid or gypsum injection) Increase of capital costs Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., occulation and disinfection) Clarier Increase of maintenance costs Public access protection Algae control Small absorbers for odour control Increase of capital costs Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., coagulation, precipitation, ion exchange, acid, reverse osmosis, water softening and demineralization) De-oiling and de-gasication pre-treatment Worker safety protection Increase of capital costs Spray controllers on toilet bowls Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., colour removal by occulation and coagulation; and pathogen removal by membrane) Determination of residual chlorine concentration Increase of maintenance costs Small absorbers for odour control Regular lter cleaning (2.5 min of labour per m3) Increase of droplet size when spraying water Increase of capital costs Additional on-site water treatment (e.g., ltration, sedimentation; occulation, coagulation and membrane ltration) Determination of residual chlorine concentration Increase of maintenance costs Small absorbers for odour control
Stevens et al. (2008) and Suzuki et al. (2002)
Suzuki et al. (2002)
Brissaud (2008) and Chiou et al. (2007)
March et al. (2004) and Nolde (1999)
Asano et al. (2007)
29
relationships between people's level of knowledge, perceptions and acceptance of recycled water are fairly complex, broad conclusions on these factors from small amount of research are still not enough (Marks, 2003). Although the difculties and complexities in the fast improvement of public acceptance have been witnessed, greater public input via participation may still promote environmental justice and assist decision makers to understand and identify public interest concerns while formulating recycled water implementation policies to some extent (Richardson and Razzaque, 2006). While most of the current social perception studies are qualitative descriptions, more advanced quantitative models as well as indexes should be developed in the future, which could provide highly persuasive information to decision makers, local water authorities, stakeholders and the community.
Acknowledgement This work was funded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Industry Linkage Grant (LP100100494). The authors acknowledge the support from Allconnex Water, City West Water, Port Macquarie Hasting Council and Sydney Olympic Park Authority.
References
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3.3.3. MCA implementation Finally, when assessment results from the multi-criteria decision making are proved to be unsustainable, several management or control approaches should be carried out (Table 7) and the recycling scheme can be re-evaluated in this integrated approach. However, the model structure and boundary differences of different tools are still needed to be carefully considered, which are likely to introduce misinterpreted conclusions at the end. For instance, when applying LCA to previous MCA results, the extended system boundaries are normally hard to dene, which include other parts of urban infrastructure (e.g., incineration plant, landll, arable and receiving waters). Besides, the outcomes from LCA and ERA may suggest opposite solutions for the environmental preferred choice as sometimes the wastewater treatment technology with lowest environmental impacts could not arrive at the highest recycled water quality for environmental protection. These outcomes, together with results from economic and social assessments should be weighted to ensure the nal evaluation results are consistent with the preferences of decision makers.
4. Conclusion Recycled water has received great attention over the recent decades due to its numerous advantages, such as low energy consumption, availability, low efuent and sludge discharge and reduced freshwater consumption. As the sustainability of water recycling system directly inuences the introduction of new end uses and the expansion of the current scheme, several conventional environmental assessment tools have been increasingly applied in this eld. MFA was found to be an effective initial screening in understanding the environmental sanitation conditions at local region. LCA has been widely used in selecting the optimal wastewater treatment technologies while ERA is mainly used in evaluating the potential effects of particular chemical hazards in recycled water on soil, surface water and groundwater. However, several limitations still exist in these individual tools in terms of boundary conditions, spatial specication, the interventions and impact types that are considered. The application of integrated tools together with qualitative or quantitative economic and social assessments have addressed these weaknesses and provided a more systematic and holistic framework in recycled water decision making. Nevertheless, the complexities and problems in model integration have also been observed, which are likely to impede the further development of combined models. As such, future work should test the performance of integrated approach under different water reuse scenarios and rene the system boundaries and assessment equations over time. Besides, further improvements such as additional onsite wastewater treatment, advanced irrigation or other recycled water use methods, access barriers are also considered essential.
30
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A Critical Review On Sustainability Assessment of Recycled Water Schemes

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Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

A critical review on sustainability assessment of recycled water schemes

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Legal and institutional framework

Stakeholders roles and responsibilities

Costs and socioeconomic benefit

Householders perceptions and needs, policy makers views, etc.

Infrastructure, managerial and financial arrangements

Environmental impact and resource recovery

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Households Greywater+ excreta Excreta

Surface water, groundwater, soil

Neighbourhood WWTP (e.g. ponds, constructed wetlands)

Surface water, groundwater, soil

On-site sanitation Effluent Sludge

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Goedkoop et al. (2008)

Dreyer et al. (2003)

Dreyer et al. (2003) and van Zelm et al. (2009)

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Thermal 43.3% 11.4% 0.5% 80.8%

Nuclear 40.3% 72.9% 0.3% 2.6%

Hydroelectric 16.4% 15.7% 99.2% 16.6%

Adapted from Ortiz et al. (2007).

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Biosolids final use

Agricultural applications, such as bean, almond, apricot, plum and grape

(3) Alfalfasorghum cottonrhodes-boiler feed (4) Cooling system feed

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Substance-dependent data: -Physical-chemical properties -Toxicological properties

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Ui mUi df PECHWW f e PECWWTP f e PECHWW

PECWWTP PECWWTP PECWWTP

inf luent effluent

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

SOCIAL DISRUPTION SOCIETY

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

ORWARE SIMULINK Model

Drinking water production Households Stormwater

Spreading and soil

Drinking water production Households Stormwater

Urine collection and storage Incineration Landfill

Spreading and soil

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Actions not required

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

Landscape and garden irrigation

Environmental ows and recreational impoundments

Stevens et al. (2008) and Suzuki et al. (2002)

Suzuki et al. (2002)

Brissaud (2008) and Chiou et al. (2007)

March et al. (2004) and Nolde (1999)

Asano et al. (2007)

Z. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 426 (2012) 1331

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