Reclaimed wastewater reuse impacts: from literature data gaps to integrated risk modelling

The complexity and the inherent interconnection of the reclaimed wastewater reuse (RWW) system requires the proper quantification of its advantages and drawbacks. In this context, water utilities and decision makers would benefit from a comprehensive risk-based framework of models aimed at the assessment of its associated impacts. In this work, a critical literature review on the models available for the assessment of RWW reuse impacts is performed to highlight which gaps need to be filled and indicate the future research directions. A simplified approach for evaluating and integrating different type of risks was proposed to address the prioritization of critical endpoints and contaminants within regulations

An integrated human health risk assessment framework for alkylphenols due to drinking water and crops' food consumption

The increasing overexploitation and pollution of fresh water resources are potential threats for public health, causing cross-contamination among the interconnected environmental compartments (freshwater, soil, crops). In particular, contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) originating from anthropic activities are not completely removed by wastewater treatments plants. This leads to their presence in drinking water (DW) sources, soil and crops intended for human consumption due to discharges of treated wastewater in surface waters and direct wastewater reuse practices. Currently, health risk assessments are limited to single exposure sources without considering the multiple exposure routes to which humans are subjected. For instance, among CECs, bisphenol A (BPA) and nonylphenol (NP), respectively, adversely affect immune and renal systems and have been frequently detected in DW and food, their major exposure sources for humans. Here, an integrated procedure is proposed to quantitatively assess health risk from CECs due to multiple exposure from the consumption of both DW and food, considering the relevant inter-connected environmental compartments. This procedure was applied to BPA and NP to calculate their probabilistic Benchmark Quotient (BQ), showing its potential in quantitatively apportioning the risk between contaminants and exposure sources, and its use as a decision support tool for prioritizing mitigation measures. Our results indicate that, even though the human health risk due to NP is not negligible, the estimated risk due to BPA is significantly higher, and the consumption of food from edible crops determines a higher risk compared to tap water. Hence, BPA is undoubtedly a contaminant to be prioritized, especially through mitigation actions aimed at its prevention and removal from food

Feasibility assessment of reclaimed wastewater reuse in agriculture: how we do it

The growing interest towards wastewater (WW) reuse as alternative irrigation source is raised by the worldwide concern on water shortages and enhanced by the new European Directive on water reuse minimum requirements. In this perspective, water utilities and decision makers would benefit from a methodology to evaluate and encourage safe and efficient agricultural WW reuse practices. In this work, we propose a novel approach to identify criteria for assessing and prioritizing WW treatment plants (WWTPs) suitability for WW reuse practices implementation. The developed methodology, coupling WWTPs’ characteristics (i.e., flowrate and effluent quality) and features of the local territory (i.e., cultivated crops and climate), is able to quantify the economic savings, in terms of water and nutrients, and avoided environmental impacts, that could be fulfilled from WW reuse, and which WWTPs and territories to prioritize in its implementation

A Quantitative Chemicals' Mixture Risk Assessment Approach For Contaminants Of Emerging Concern Management In Drinking Water

Uncertainties on occurrence and hazard of mixtures of Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) in drinking water (DW) challenge water utilities and decision makers in prioritizing these compounds in, respectively, interventions for the optimization of DW treatment and DW regulations. Continuous development of quantitative risk assessment procedures addressing adverse effects of CECs supports decision-making regarding mitigation actions in minimizing health risks. We propose a novel, quantitative chemical risk assessment (QCRA) approach for mixtures of CECs in DW. The risks are evaluated with the aid of the benchmark quotient probabilistic distribution and including uncertainties in both (i) exposure assessment using occurrence data of different DW sources and simulating DW treatment by granular activated carbon and (ii) hazard assessment steps. The QCRA was applied to compare risks deriving from the presence of alkylphenols mixtures in tap or bottled DW, and to evaluate how actual DW consumption habits affect health risks

Evaluating organizational configurations

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A P2P-based Infrastructure for Virtual-Enterprise´s Supply-Chain Management

This paper proposes and describes a prototype of a peer-to-peer based infrastructure to support virtual enterprise’s supply chain management. Because of a virtual enterprise is composed of autonomous, distributed, and continuously evolving entities, we have naturally modelled each business entity like a peer’s agent platform that can play several roles according to the task to be fulfilled. To this end, we describe and apply such roles, required to the organizational architecture, into a virtual storehouse scenari

From a Goal-Oriented Methodology to a BDI Agent Language: The Case of Tropos and Alan

R. Meersman, Z. Tari, P. Herrero et al. (Eds.