Environmental Assessment of a Wastewater System under Water demand management policies

Haniye Safarpour (), Massoud Tabesh () and Seyyed Ahmadreza Shahangian ()
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Haniye Safarpour: University of Tehran
Massoud Tabesh: University of Tehran
Seyyed Ahmadreza Shahangian: University of Tehran

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2022, vol. 36, issue 6, No 19, 2077 pages

Abstract: Abstract Water demand management policies (WDMPs) are considered necessary for sustainable water supplies to affect urban water infrastructures from various aspects, which has less attention in previous studies. Hence, this study is focused on proposing a comprehensive novel approach to provide helpful insight for researchers and policy-makers towards the environmental effects of applying WDMPs on wastewater systems. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method assesses the environmental burdens of utilizing WDMPs in the operation stage of a real wastewater system in Baharestan city, Iran. A detailed inventory is considered, including maintenance of sewer pipelines, replacement of manhole covers, civil works, road rehabilitation, energy consumption, chemical usage, transportation, and air emissions of the WWCN and WWTP using SimaPro software. Results show that a significant part of the environmental impacts accounts for energy consumption, which has strong effects on most midpoint categories and has a great change in different scenarios. For example, energy’s impact on the global warming category is reduced from around 18.4 to 8.5 million kg CO2 eq. from scenario 0 to scenario 4 with an average of 165.4 to 94 L/capita/day of wastewater production, respectively. Besides, the results demonstrate that the environmental effects driven by the WWTP are eightfold the corresponding WWCN’s impacts. Overall, the outcomes from the present study reveals that implementing WDMPs can lead to diminishing environmental impacts. For instance, reducing wastewater production up to 68% can decrease 18% of the WDMPs’ environmental impacts of the wastewater system in the operation stage.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment; Urban Water Management; Wastewater Collection Network; Wastewater Treatment Plant; Environmental impacts; SimaPro software (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11269-022-03129-w

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