A Critical Review on the End Uses of Recycled Water

Abstract

5 6Recycled water provides a viable opportunity to supplement water supplies as well as 7 alleviate environmental loads. This study examines the sources of recycled water and 8 discusses various end uses. This work focuses on reviewing the historical development and 9 current status of recycled water on a global scale with containing the evolvement of 10 wastewater treatment technologies, water quality guidelines and public attitudes. This review 11 also illustrates typical case studies of recycled water in a number of countries, including 12 Australia, Asia, the U.S., Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. These pilot 13 studies can be good examples for the future projects. The study identifies the good prospects 14 of further expansion and exploration of current and new end uses while emphasizing the 15 integrated water planning and management as well as challenging and tasks in the future. 16 17 28 29 30With the social development and population increase, water consumption has increased 31 beyond sustainable levels in many parts of the world (Dolnicar and Schafer, 2009). Uneven 32 distributed water resources, severe droughts, groundwater depletion, water quality 33 deterioration and climate change make the current water supply situation even worse. In 34 many countries, fresh water scarcity is already heavily emerged which is considered as the 35 single most important factor limiting socio-economic growth in the 21st century (Anderson, 36 2003a; Asano, 2001). According to International Water Management Institute's (IWMI) 37 report, Australia, California, the Middle East and the Mediterranean have been regarded as 38 high water stress regions (IWMI, 2006a). Likewise, the situation of water pollution and over-39 extraction in Asia and Africa is far from optimistic. Consequently, exploring alternative water 40resources has become an urgent issue, especially in these severe water shortage areas. 41Alternative resources include the capture and use of rainwater, stormwater as well as recycled 42 water and desalinated water, among which, recycled water provides a more constant volume 43 of water than rainfall-dependent sources. It also helps in alleviating the pressure on existing 44 water supplies and protecting remaining water bodies from being polluted. Thus, it is 45 increasingly being considered as a supplementary water supply (Huertas et al., 2008).

Wastewater reclamation and reuse in China: Opportunities and challenges

“…The highest-ranked countries of the total wastewater reuse are the United States and Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, Israel, and Kuwait are the most remarkable countries based on the per capita wastewater reuse (Jimenez and Asano, 2008). In the United States, Florida and California represent the largest use of reclaimed water, and landscape irrigation use of reclaimed water increased rapidly from 44% in 2003 to 59% in 2009 in Florida (Chen et al, 2013b). More than 92% of wastewater is treated in Australia with the worse water scarcity problems.…”

Research on the Phenomenon of Chinese Residents’ Spiritual Contagion for the Reuse of Recycled Water Based on SC-IAT

“…Nowadays, sewage treatment technology has been developed to produce recycled water that can be used in many fields. However, in reality, the scale of recycled water reuse is still limited [4]. Why has sewage recycling technology, proven to be effective, not been implemented yet on a broad scale?…”

A mini-review on the impacts of climate change on wastewater reclamation and reuse

“…Regions with expected high growth of advanced water reuse included USA, China, Saudi Arab, Australia, Spain, and Mexico (Table 3) The number of projects relating to direct potable reuse (DPR) and planned indirect potable reuse (IPR) is increasing, thanks to the successful demonstration cases on purified treated wastewater in Namibia, USA, and Singapore (Chen et al, 2013). In an attempt to bridge the gap between water supply and demands, the Governments are more enthusiastic to support these projects, as in case of IPR in Bangalore (India), Wulpen (Belgium) and Langford (UK) (US EPA, 2012).…”

“…Its technical infrastructure basically comprises of transmission pipes, treatment facilities and distribution structures. Whilst the use of treated wastewater often bears larger financial, technical, and managerial challenges than conventional water sources, wastewater can be exploited at different levels for diverse end-use purposes (Chen et al, 2013). The degrees of treatment regarding to common methods were simplified and presented in Table 1.…”