Modeling Occurrence and Assessing Public Perceptions of De Facto Wastewater Reuse across the USA

abstract: The National Research Council 2011 report lists quantifying the extent of de facto (or unplanned) potable reuse in the U.S. as the top research need associated with assessing the potential for expanding the nations water supply through reuse of municipal wastewater. Efforts to identify the significance and potential health impacts of de facto water reuse are impeded by out dated information regarding the contribution of municipal wastewater effluent to potable water supplies. This project aims to answer this research need. The overall goal of the this project is to quantify the extent of de facto reuse by developing a model that estimates the amount of wastewater effluent that is present within drinking water treatment plants; and to use the model in conjunction with a survey to help assess public perceptions. The four-step approach to accomplish this goal includes: (1) creating a GIS-based model coupled with Python programming; (2) validating the model with field studies by analyzing sucralose as a wastewater tracer; (3) estimating the percentage of wastewater in raw drinking water sources under varying streamflow conditions; (4) and assessing through a social survey the perceptions of the general public relating to acceptance and occurrence of de facto reuse. The resulting De Facto Reuse in our Nations Consumable Supply (DRINCS) Model, estimates that treated municipal wastewater is present at nearly 50% of drinking water treatment plant intake sites serving greater than 10,000 people (N=2,056). Contrary to the high frequency of occurrence, the magnitude of occurrence is relatively low with 50% of impacted intakes yielding less than 1% de facto reuse under average streamflow conditions. Model estimates increase under low flow conditions (modeled by Q95), in several cases treated wastewater makes up 100% of the water supply. De facto reuse occurs at levels that surpass what is publically perceived in the three cities of Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, and Phoenix, AZ. Respondents with knowledge of de facto reuse occurrence are 10 times more likely to have a high acceptance (greater than 75%) of treated wastewater at their home tap.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering 201

Integrated Water Resource Management in Trinidad and Tobago

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximize economic and social welfare (in an equitable manner) without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. This case study focuses on Trinidad and Tobago, a country consisting of two main islands north-east of Venezuela, between 10 and 11.5 degrees north latitude and between 60 and 62 degrees west longitude. It is the most southerly of the Lesser Antilles and experiences a tropical climate with two seasons namely, wet and dry. The major objectives of this project are: to map water quality information that is, physico-chemical and heavy metal variables for the rivers of Trinidad and Tobago; to look at land use patterns and their effects on the water quality of the rivers of Trinidad and Tobgo; to explore how the scientific information can be used to bring about IWRM in Trinidad and Tobago. The report contains the conclusions of the mapping exercise and an analysis of the stakeholders and their interactions in order to enhance the use of science and technology in finding solutions to sustainable development problems

Groundwater pollution in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania : assessing vulnerability and protection priorities

xvi+194hlm.;24c

From integrated to expedient: an adaptive framework for river basin management in developing countries

Water resource management / River basin management / Water allocation / Case studies / Africa South of Sahara / Great Ruaha River Basin

Watershed-scale environmental risk assessment of accidental water pollution: The case of laoguan river, China

Although co-existing sources of chemicals pose major cumulative environmental threats to watersheds, few risk asse- ssments have specifically tackled the accidental chemical pollution of rivers at watershed-scale. Herein, a Watershed-scale Accidental Pollution Risk Assessment (WAPRA) method was constructed which applied a risk ranking procedure to the whole watershed, and was based on watershed-scale stressors, exposures to and effects of water accidental pollution risk (e.g., sudden occurrences, waterway spread, and acute consequences). Multi-criteria analysis and instantaneous water quality models were used to refine the risk ranking procedure within the framework of a Relative Risk Model (RRM), a regional-scale ecological risk assessment approach. The study area comprised the Laoguan River, a tributary watershed of the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which will eventually feed into the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China. The resultant map shows that risk is higher in the upstream and downstream reaches, and lower in the middle reaches. The map also indicates that the greatest threat to water quality arises from the upstream heavy metal mine tailings ponds. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were performed to validate the robustness of the WAPRA method

A transition towards sustainable food systems in Europe

A growing number of voices – among others the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC, 2017) - have highlighted the need to change the overarching infrastructure of food-related policies. They claim that the European Union does not have a food policy . For example, the General Food Law addresses food safety issues, but not nutrition. Regulations aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of food production are not built in connection with how food is consumed. There are regulations that encourage production systems to improve product quality, but the link to sustainability is not clear. There are rules that regulate information and communication to consumers, but a reference to sustainability is missing. Common Agricultural Policy grants subsidies to 'green' production processes, but most of them concern primarily production actors. Distribution of financial resources over these instruments is largely disproportionate. Often these payments are not linked to clear outcomes and impacts. How could a food policy contribute to shaping sustainable food systems in Europe? It is time for policy makers, academics, and civil society to take a step back and reflect upon appropriate policies infrastructures for transition toward food sustainability. This challenge implies a pervasive process that addresses in a consistent and coherent way the multidimensionality of food – environmental, social, economic, health, ethical and resilience implications - and takes into consideration the reciprocal influences between production, distribution and consumption and their links with broader socio-ecological and socio-technical systems. This process should reorganize food-related policy instruments around societal goals and put in place the necessary instruments to enable the social and institutional change, overcoming barriers. This report proposes a conceptual framework and carries out an assessment of the existing policy infrastructure with the purpose of suggesting points of entry for policy-led transition towards food sustainability in Europe. The system perspective adopted allows us to apply one of the key principles of sustainable development as well as sustainable consumption and implies that policies aiming at sustainability should address consumption issues as well as production patterns. The challenge for a new policy approach is to put in place coordinated policy tools that can affect directly or indirectly this process of alignment, linking together self-responsibility with freedom to act. Rather than pursuing an ambitious program of redesign of the agricultural policy into a broader food policy, we suggest a ‘bottom up’ process of construction of a food policy mix around strategic goals aimed at the integration and coherence between policies, together with the reorganization of existing tools and the introduction of new tools to fill existing gaps. The introduction of strategic tools - such as the EU Sustainable Food Assessment and Action Plan, proposed by the EESC (2017) at the EU level, or urban food strategies at the local level - can contribute to develop new representations of the food system, update policy objectives, verify the adequacy of existing policy instruments with respect to new objectives, identify missing policy instruments and mobilize all stakeholders to build a coherent set of policies. This report lays down some criteria on which this process should be activated

Risk assessment of Pursiala groundwater area in poor chemical state

The population in Finland relies heavily on the aquifers as a source of potable water. The aim of the project was to understand if the industrial activities have caused a deterioration of the groundwater quality of the Pursiala aquifer and to study if the use of groundwater at Pursiala may cause significant health risks to the local people. The literature review focused on some methods used to manage a contaminated site/groundwater and on the characteristics of the chemicals of interest. The Master's Thesis dealt with two areas around a sawmill and a wood impregnation plant, which, respectively, have caused a discharge of chlorophenols (CPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the groundwater. The study of the aquifer vulnerability was conducted with the DRASTIC method, which gives as result the DRASTIC vulnerability index (DVI). As a result, the higher is the index, the higher is the vulnerability. The maximum DVI values of 175.9 (CPs) and 180.2 (PAHs) indicate that the aquifer is very vulnerable. The dispersion of the contaminants in the aquifer was analyzed using a Danish preliminary risk assessment tool named GrundRisk. Monitoring data collected from years 2004-2013, for each chemical detected in the source area in the aquifer, were considered for the simulations in GrundRisk. In the case of PAHs, the simulations showed an excess of the groundwater guidelines (for drinking-water) at the point of compliance for only benzo(a)pyrene. The assessment of risks caused by CPs was based on the concentrations detected in the groundwater monitoring wells located in the sawmill area. All the concentrations were above the groundwater guidelines. Based on these results, a human health risk assessment was executed on the two groups of chemicals. The sum of the Hazard Quotients HQs gave a maximum Hazard Index HI of 460.1 and 54.3 for, respectively, CPs and PAHs. To summarize, the DRASTIC method and the GrundRisk tool showed the high vulnerability of the Pursiala aquifer and the negative impact of the industrial activities on the groundwater quality. Because the acceptable level for non-carcinogenic risks is HI=1, the industrial activities cause a threat to human health. It is therefore recommended to execute further investigations and remedial actions. Lastly, the simulations gave almost similar concentrations than those documented in the POVET database, which shows that GrundRisk is applicable to the preliminary risk assessment of groundwater contamination

Agricultural land systems importance for supporting food security and sustainable development goals: a systematic review

Agriculture provides the largest share of food supplies and ensures a critical number of ecosystem services (e.g., food provisioning). Therefore, agriculture is vital for food security and supports the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 2 (SDG 2 - zero hunger) as others SDG's. Several studies have been published in different world areas with different research directions focused on increasing food and nutritional security from an agricultural land system perspective. The heterogeneity of the agricultural research studies calls for an interdisciplinary and comprehensive systematization of the different research directions and the plethora of approaches, scales of analysis, and reference data used. Thus, this work aims to systematically review the contributions of the different agricultural research studies by systematizing the main research fields and present a synthesis of the diversity and scope of research and knowledge. From an initial search of 1151 articles, 260 meet the criteria to be used in the review. Our analysis revealed that most articles were published between 2015 and 2019 (59%), and most of the case studies were carried out in Asia (36%) and Africa (20%). The number of studies carried out in the other continents was lower. In the last 30 years, most of the research was centred in six main research fields: land-use changes (28%), agricultural efficiency (27%), climate change (16%), farmer's motivation (12%), urban and peri-urban agriculture (11%), and land suitability (7%). Overall, the research fields identified are directly or indirectly linked to 11 of the 17 SDGs. There are essential differences in the number of articles among research fields, and future efforts are needed in the ones that are less represented to support food security and the SDGs.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio