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Reuse of Treated Wastewater in Irrigation: Exploring the Current Challenges and Opportunities through Life Cycle Thinking Tools

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A special issue of Resources (ISSN 2079-9276).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2022) | Viewed by 7654

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Andi Mehmeti

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Guest Editor

Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (CIHEAM IAMB), 9, 70010 Valenzano, Italy
Interests: agriculture system; life cycle assessment; life cycle costing; eco-efficiency; sustainability assessment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water scarcity is threatening the sustainability of food production. Given the current trends and future climate change projections, agriculture will have to rely more on the use of non-conventional water and Treated Wastewater. Wastewater reuse in agriculture has certain benefits, by maintaining or increasing crop yields, providing water and nutrients for the cultivation of crops, and suppressing effluent discharges and the associated nutrient contributions to receiving waters. On the other hand, water reclamation can introduce more challenges from additional efforts in energy, chemicals, and infrastructure. Therefore, the global sustainability of the reuse of treated wastewater in irrigation has to be verified by looking through a systemic lens and taking into account upstream and downstream processes.

Life cycle thinking (LCT) is a decision support tool to support sustainability implications (economic, environmental, and social impacts) across all stages of a product or process life cycle. LCT includes LCC (life cycle cost analysis), E-LCA (environmental LCA), and S-LCA (social LCA). Despite the potential value it offers to make more informed decisions, the integration of LCT tools into irrigation and crop production with treated wastewater has been limited.

This Special Issue welcomes research on the application of life cycle thinking tools aimed at increasing the level of knowledge and stimulating debate about the “attractiveness” of treated wastewater as a resource in irrigation under a life cycle perspective.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Andi Mehmeti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Resources is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

irrigation
sustainability
life cycle assessment (LCA)
life cycle costing (LCC)
social life cycle assessment (S-LCA)
wastewater treatment technologies
reuse of reclaimed wastewater
wastewater reuse and monitoring
eco-efficiency
crop production

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 520 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Growth Development, Physiological Status and Water Footprint Assessment of Nursery Young Olive Trees (Olea europaea L. ‘Konservolea’) Irrigated with Urban Treated Wastewater

by Konstantina Fotia, George Nanos, Pantelis Barouchas, Markos Giannelos, Aikaterini Linardi, Aikaterini Vallianatou, Paraskevi Mpeza and Ioannis Tsirogiannis

Resources 2022, 11(5), 40; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/resources11050040 - 19 Apr 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2366

Abstract

Application of urban treated wastewater (TWW) has been practiced globally as an alternative irrigation water source in areas where access to safe and abundant freshwater is limited. Water footprint (WF) has been employed over the last decades as a tool for the assessment of the sustainable management of water resources. In the present study, the suitability of TWW for the irrigation of nursery young olive trees (Olea europaea L. ‘Konservolea’), one of the main table olive cultivars in Greece, the second global table olive exporter, was tested and compared to tap water irrigation and application of zeolite on soil. Plant growth and physiological parameters and stress indicators were measured. Additionally, a WF assessment was performed, distinguishing TWW from freshwater (blue water) resources in order to examine the possibility of minimizing the environmental impact through the limitation of freshwater use. Plants irrigated with TWW performed better in most of the growth and physiological parameters measured compared to the other treatments. Stress indicators revealed that TWW did not induce any additional stress. TWW could be used as an irrigation water source for young olive trees for at least a short period during their growth as a safe and sustainable alternate of blue water resources. Additionally, the WF assessment showed that the application of TWW could be a significant blue water saving measure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reuse of Treated Wastewater in Irrigation: Exploring the Current Challenges and Opportunities through Life Cycle Thinking Tools)

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13 pages, 1860 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Economics of Fruit and Vegetable Production Irrigated with Reclaimed Water Incorporating the Hidden Costs of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts

by Kledja Canaj, Andi Mehmeti and Julio Berbel

Resources 2021, 10(9), 90; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/resources10090090 - 03 Sep 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2675

Abstract

The estimation and quantification of external environmental costs (hidden costs) are crucial to sustainability assessments of treated wastewater reuse projects. These costs, however, are rarely considered in economic analysis studies. In this work, monetized life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) were combined into a hybrid model to calculate cradle-to-farm gate external environmental costs (EEC) and internal costs (IC) of producing 1 t of plant-based product irrigated with reclaimed water in a Mediterranean context. The total cost was calculated by combining monetized LCA and LCC results. The results for the crops under consideration were 119.4 €/t for tomatoes, 344.4 €/t for table grapes, and 557 €/t for artichokes. Our findings show that there are significant hidden costs at the farm level, with EEC accounting for 57%, 23%, and 38% of the total cost of tomatoes, table grapes, and artichokes, respectively. Electricity use for water treatment and fertilization generated most of the EEC driven by the global warming, particulate matter, acidification, and fossil resource scarcity impact categories. When compared to groundwater, the higher internal costs of reclaimed water were offset by lower external costs, particularly when supported by low-energy wastewater treatment. This demonstrates that incorporating EEC into economic analyses might generate a better understanding of the profitability of treated wastewater reuse in crop production. In Italy and the Mediterranean region, research on the sustainability of water reuse in irrigation through life cycle thinking is still limited. Using a multi-metric approach, our analysis brought new insights into both economic and environmental performance – and their tradeoff relationships in wastewater reuse for irrigation of agricultural crops. In future research, it would be of interest to use different monetization methods as well as to investigate social externalities to explore their size and role in the total external costs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reuse of Treated Wastewater in Irrigation: Exploring the Current Challenges and Opportunities through Life Cycle Thinking Tools)

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Review

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20 pages, 1520 KiB

Open AccessReview

Environmental Assessment of Wastewater Treatment and Reuse for Irrigation: A Mini-Review of LCA Studies

by Andi Mehmeti and Kledja Canaj

Resources 2022, 11(10), 94; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/resources11100094 - 13 Oct 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4167

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of existing LCA literature analyzing the environmental impacts of wastewater treatment and reuses, with irrigation as a process or scenario. Fifty-nine (n = 59) papers published between 2010 and 2022 were reviewed to provide insights into the methodological choices (goals, geographical scope, functional units, system boundaries, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) procedures). The results show that LCA research has steadily increased in the last six years. The LCAs are case-study specific, apply a process perspective, and are primarily conducted by European authors. The LCAs are mainly midpoint-oriented with global warming, acidification and eutrophication potential as the most common impact categories reported. Volumetric-based functional units are the most widely applied. The most commonly used LCIA models were ReCiPe and CML, with Ecoinvent as the most commonly used database and SimaPro as the primary LCA software tool. Despite the fact that these methods cover a wide range of midpoint impact categories, nearly half of the studies focused on a few life cycle impact category indicators. In many studies, the LCA scope is frequently narrowed, and the assessment does not look at the cradle-to-grave system boundary but rather at cradle-to-gate or gate-to-gate system boundaries. Regardless of technology or other system boundary assumptions, the design of environmentally efficient wastewater reuse schemes is primarily determined by the type of energy supplied to the product’s life cycle. Our findings highlight that more holistic studies that take into account the expansion of system boundaries and the use of a broad set of environmental impact categories, supported by uncertainty and/or sensitivity analysis, are required. The overview presented in this paper serves as groundwork for future LCA studies in the field of irrigation with treated wastewater. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reuse of Treated Wastewater in Irrigation: Exploring the Current Challenges and Opportunities through Life Cycle Thinking Tools)

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