In an arid and water deficient urban area, such as Xi'an in the northwest region of China, gardening and forestation often use large amounts of tap water. Therefore, there is a need for treated wastewater reuse for such purpose to mitigate urban water shortage, especially in the newly developed housing area, where a high green coverage is often required for both commercial value and living condition improvement. Supply of the treated wastewater through a centralized system which has been planned and partially constructed is one measure to meet such need, but it may require an extension of the distribution system for a full coverage of the whole city area. A supplementary measure is to construct decentralized wastewater treatment and reuse (DESAR) systems in areas that are distant from the planned centralized system. In order to optimize the plan of wastewater reuse for housing development in the urban area, the authors analyzed the existing plan of centralized wastewater reuse and the envisaged plan of housing development in Xi'an urban area. A method was proposed for selection of a feasible way of reclaimed water reuse from two options, namely centralized and decentralized ones, by introducing a critical distance L0 which depends on the relationship between the cost for DESAR system installation and that for water delivery pipeline construction. If the distance from the project site to the nearest access point of the centralized system L is shorter than L0 then using reclaim water from the centralized system becomes more feasible, and otherwise DESAR system installation becomes more feasible. A distribution map was thus obtained to show an optimized plan of centralized and decentralized wastewater reuse systems for housing development in Xi'an city. An example was also given to show the advantage of a DESAR system installed.

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Saline wastewater is ubiquitous in industries. The present study reports the effects of salinity on the morphological properties of aerobic granules. Within a wide range of salinity from 1% to 5%, good aerobic granules were successively cultured in sequencing batch reactors (SBRs). It was found by scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis that the granular surface turned to be smoother and more regular with increase of salinity, and under lower salinity (1%) the microbe was cocci-dominated, while under higher salinity (5%) the microbe was filaments-dominated. As a result of size distribution analysis, the granules were found to grow faster, larger and with a wider size spectrum under higher salinity. However, the porosities of the granules under the salinity of 1%, 2.5% and 5% were 0.90, 0.89 and 0.82, respectively, indicating that higher salinity may result in more compact granules. It can be concluded from this study that formation of large and compact granules is possible under salinity as high as 5% and filamentous microorganisms did not necessary lead to sludge bulking and granule breakage.

This study examined a novel reuse of alum sludge, an inescapable by-product of drinking water treatment process when aluminium salt is added as a coagulant, as the main medium in a laboratory-scale multi-stage constructed wetland (CW) system for reject water treatment. Such reject water is a main concern in municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWWTP) for increasing the organic and nutrient loading. A ‘tidal flow’ strategy was employed to enhance the wetland aeration to stimulate organic matters (OM) and ammoniacal-nitrogen (N) oxidation while the ‘step feed’ operation was adopted to supply the necessary amount of carbon source for denitrification. The results reveal that alum sludge acting as P adsorbent can secure the P removal. Meanwhile, high removals of N and OM can also be obtained due to the active bacteria growth on the alum sludge surface. The results show that average removal efficiencies of 65.4 ± 12.3% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), 67.8 ± 9.2% for five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), 33.6 ± 17.0% for N and 99.5 ± 0.49% for P can be achieved over a period of 190 days. This indicates that novel reuse of alum sludge as medium in CW system can provide a promising approach for reject water treatment. Therefore, it will significantly reduce the amount of pollutant feedback through reject water recycling in a MWWTP.

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In order to gain knowledge on the presence of bacteria and viruses in urban waters, the authors started a long-term study on the microbiological quality of urban lakes and rivers in Xi'an, China. In the current study, enteroviruses were chosen as typical viruses and RT-nested PCR was conducted for their detection. Universal primers were designed for simultaneous detection of poliovirus, coxsackievirus, and enterovirus 71 which are the most frequently encountered enteroviruses in China. The RT-nested PCR protocol established in this study showed high sensitivity and specificity. The detection limit was equivalent to 0.038 CCID50 per litre by applying a modified adsorption-elution concentration method. No cross-reactivity was observed using the genome of pathogenic bacteria as of PCR template. The occurrence of enteroviruses was compared with fecal coliform count in a 6-month period from July to December 2006 for the urban waters. As a result, it was noticed that the presence of enteroviruses might not relate to the fecal coliform count so much. Statistical analysis also indicated that there was no significant correlation between the presence of enteroviruses and that of total bacteria, total coliform, and fecal coliform.

A rapid quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) method was developed for simultaneous detection of enteric bacteria from surface waters by utilizing a pair of universal primers that targeted four bacteria strains, namely Shigella dysenteriae, Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella typhimurium, and Escherichia coli. It was estimated that the QPCR method had a 94% confidence, and a detection limit as 2.7 Escherichia coli cells per sample in undiluted DNA extracts. The QPCR method was applied for the bacteriological examination of several surface waters in the urban area of Xi'an, China, and comparison was made with the conventional bacteria indicators determined by conventional membrane filter (MF) method. As a result, the calibrator cell equivalents (CCE) determined by QPCR was 2.2 to 5 times of the total coliform CFU, and the characteristics of the bacterial quality of different waters could be well presented by the QPCR results with a higher sensitivity. The coefficient of variation (CV) of data obtained by QPCR was smaller than that by traditional MF method, indicating a more stable analysis result. The QPCR method established by this study has manifest advantages over conventional methods in its rapidness and sensibility for the detection of pathogenic bacteria from surface water. It would provide a more reliable approach for the assessment of bacteriological risk of water environment.