Environmental performance evaluation of a drinking water treatment plant: A life cycle assessment perspective

Drinking water treatment aims to avoid or minimize some risks to human health and to provide adequate water quality by removing physical, chemical and biological contaminants. However, treatment processes require increasing efforts in terms of technology, chemicals and energy inputs, which generate increased secondary environmental impacts and added water production costs. The objective of this study is to evaluate the drinking water treatment plant (DWTP) in Iasi City (Romania) by life cycle assessment (LCA) and to identify and characterize its environmental impacts. Iasi DWTP involves the following scheme: pre-oxidation (chlorine dioxide), coagulation/flocculation, sedimentation, pH correction (calcium hydroxide), rapid sand filtration, granular activated carbon filtration and disinfection (chlorine gas). LCA was performed according to the ISO 14040 standard with the support of SimaPro 8.3. software and Eco-invent 3.3 data base. Life cycle impact assessment has been performed with Recipe 1.13. Midpoint method. The life cycle inventory included the construction and operational phases. The novelty of this study was to define two additional functional units related to removing contaminants besides the traditional 1 m3 of treated water. The main contributors to impact in most categories were: the electricity consumption (25 – 95% depending on impact category) and the ferric chloride used in coagulation/flocculation (35 – 100%, depending on impact category). Life cycle impact assessment showed that the lower the pollutant concentration, the higher the specific environmental impacts will be, which prompts for further detailed analysis of water treatment plant environmental performance in at least two directions: removal of emerging contaminants (present in very low concentrations) and a more detailed analysis on the individual performance of each treatment stage

Including adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change in a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm framework for urban water supply systems incorporating GHG emissions

Cities around the world are increasingly involved in climate action and mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, in the context of responding to climate pressures in the water sector, very few studies have investigated the impacts of changing water use on GHG emissions, even though water resource adaptation often requires greater energy use. Consequently, reducing GHG emissions, and thus focusing on both mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change in planning and managing urban water supply systems, is necessary. Furthermore, the minimization of GHG emissions is likely to conflict with other objectives. Thus, applying a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA), which can evolve an approximation of entire trade-off (Pareto) fronts of multiple objectives in a single run, would be beneficial. Consequently, the main aim of this paper is to incorporate GHG emissions into a MOEA framework to take into consideration both adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change for a city’s water supply system. The approach is applied to a case study based on Adelaide’s southern water supply system to demonstrate the framework’s practical management implications. Results indicate that trade-offs exist between GHG emissions and risk-based performance, as well as GHG emissions and economic cost. Solutions containing rainwater tanks are expensive, while GHG emissions greatly increase with increased desalinated water supply. Consequently, while desalination plants may be good adaptation options to climate change due to their climate-independence, rainwater may be a better mitigation response, albeit more expensive.F. L. Paton, H. R. Maier, and G. C. Dand

Public participation in water resources management in Romania: issues, expectations and actual involvement

Water and its sustainable use is closely connected to developments in other fields, such as industry, agriculture and services, energy, nature conservation and health. The pressures imposed by the higher water demands, quality of discharges and climate change raise new water challenges which can be overcome only by coordinated efforts of multiple stakeholders through cooperation and participatory processes. This study presents how public participation – within the context of integrated water resources management – currently functions in Romania. Over the past twenty years, this country witnessed major political, social, economical and environmental transformations. These transformations also mark an evolution from a period in which communist structures destroyed any type of participation into a period in which societal organizations are reconstructed and participatory processes are developing. In this context, this contribution elaborates on the expectations of different stakeholders related to public participation in water resources management, as well as on the actual implementation of public participation in practice. Three case studies are presented, each of them analyzing different aspects of participation in water resources management: stakeholders’ expectations, formal participation procedures and active stakeholder involvement. By using the results of the case studies, we present some of the main issues connected to the limited participation in water resources management. We concluded that although there are institutional efforts and a general willingness to improve public participation in the field of water management, actual involvement of relevant stakeholders is still very limited