Environmental impact assessment of centralized municipal wastewater management in Thailand

Limphitakphong, Nantamol; Pharino, Chanathip; Kanchanapiya, Premrudee

doi:10.1007/s11367-016-1130-9

Cited by 29 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…and unspecified capacities, the treatments were evaluated in 34 papers for influent flows from 24 m 3 /d up to 567,000 m 3 /d. The largest treatments (>300,000 m 3 /d) are in Egypt, Thailand and India (Mahgoub et al, 2010;Roushdi et al, 2012;Limphitakphong et al, 2016;Polruang et al, 2018;Singh and Kansal, 2018). The treatment of industrial wastewaters was evaluated from influent flows varying from 112 m 3 /d to 35,000 m 3 /d.…”

Section: Treatments Size and Lifespanmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment in developing countries: A review

2019

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Within developing countries, wastewater treatment (WWT) has improved in recent years in but remains a high priority sustainability challenge. Accordingly, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have recently started to analyse the environmental impacts of WWT technologies on the specific context of less developed countries, mainly in China and India. This work presents a comprehensive review of this knowledge with the aim of critically analysing the main conclusions, gaps and challenges for future WWT-related LCAs in developing countries. The most commonly assessed technologies in the 43 reviewed articles are different variations of activated sludge and extensive treatments applied in decentralized systems; however, studies focused on advanced technologies or new sources of pollution (e.g. micropollutants) are still lacking. Goal and system boundaries are normally clearly defined, but significant stages for some technologies such as the construction and sludge management are frequently not included and functional units should be defined accordingly to specific conditions in developing countries. At the inventory level, a more concise description of sources and technical parameters would greatly improve the quality of the LCAs along with accountability of direct greenhouse gas emissions. Eutrophication and global warming are the two

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Section: Treatments Size and Lifespanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Europe (e.g. Mahgoub et al, 2010;Roushdi et al 2012;Meneses-Jácome et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2015;Lu et al, 2017) or Japan (Limphitakphong et al, 2016)) have been used due to the absence of more specific information. Moreover, Kalbar et al (2013Kalbar et al ( , 2014 and…”

Section: Use Of Normalization and Weightingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment in developing countries: A review

2019

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“…The present study included the CO 2 and CH 4 biogenic and direct emissions, and N 2 O emissions. According to the IPCC, the CO 2 biogenic gas emissions are recommended as GHG-neutral and have been omitted in other studies. ,,,, The S-LCI results show that system 2 had the lowest performance solely in CH 4 biogenic emissions. The main CH 4 biogenic emissions were due to the assumed leakage from the anaerobic digesters.…”

Section: Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Standardized Stoichiometric Life-Cycle Inventory for Enhanced Specificity in Environmental Assessment of Sewage Treatment

Alvarado

Hsu

et al. 2019

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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In recent years, many life-cycle assessments (LCAs) have been applied to the field of sewage treatment (ST). However, most LCAs lack systematic data collection (DC) and processing methods for inventories of conventional ST (CST), much less for recently developed technologies. In addition, the use of site-generic databases results in LCAs that lack the representativeness and understanding of the regional environmental impacts and trade-offs between different impact categories, especially nutrient enrichment and toxicity-related categories. These shortcomings make comparative evaluation and implementation more challenging. In order to assist in the decision-making process, a novel stoichiometric life-cycle inventory (S-LCI) for ST was developed. In the S-LCI, biochemical pathways derived from elemental analyses combined with process-engineering calculations enable steady-state comparison of the water, air, and soil emissions of any sewage and sludge sample treated through the ST configurations analyzed herein. The DC required for the estimation of the foreground data for a CST is summarized in a 41-item checklist. Moreover, the S-LCI was validated for CST by comparing the S-LCI with actual ST plant operations performed in Hong Kong. A novel energy-derived ST inventory is developed and compared here with the CST. The resulting inventories are ready to be integrated into the SimaPro software for life cycle impact assessment as illustrated by the case study. Using the S-LCI not only helps to standardize the DC and processing, but it also enhances the level of specificity by using sample characterization and site-specific data. The EcoInvent database, which contains a single sample characterization per Swiss and global average ST plant class could be expanded by using the S-LCI.

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“…Eutrophication, acidification, freshwater ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, human toxicity, global warming potential (GWP), and climate change are the impact categories that have received much attention in WWT. ,,,,,,,,− Thus, particulate matter formation (PMF), metal depletion, fossil depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, abiotic depletion, and photochemical oxidation are quantified but not discussed further in this study.…”

Section: Materials and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Energy Balance: Environmental Trade-Offs of Organics Capture and Low Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratio Sewage Treatment Systems

Alvarado

Hsu

Lam

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Several life-cycle assessments (LCAs) have evaluated the environmental impacts (EIs) of different wastewater treatment (WWT) configurations, attempting resource recovery and energy efficiency. However, a plant-wide LCA considering up-concentration primary treatment and low carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio sewage at the secondary biological treatment (SBT) has not yet been conducted. This study identifies the environmental trade-offs and hotspots for the chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) and low C/N ratio SBT emerging processes compared to conventional WWT. The life-cycle inventories were calculated using a stoichiometric life-cycle inventory framework that couples stoichiometry and kinetics to obtain site-specific water, air, and soil emissions. The midpoint results of LCA show that CEPT with anaerobic digestion (AD) for sludge treatment achieves energy self-sufficiency, but increases marine eutrophication (MEu) by 1 order of magnitude compared to conventional WWT. A mainstream anaerobic fluidized-bed bioreactor and a partial nitritation-anammox fluidized-bed membrane bioreactor which can reduce all environmental impacts by 17−47%, including MEu, are proposed as the SBT of the low-carbon CEPT settled sewage. Integrating the standardized S-LCI framework resulted in a sitespecific LCA that aids decision-makers on choosing between higher reductions in most EIs at the expense of high MEu or less but consistent reductions in all EI categories.

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Environmental impact assessment of centralized municipal wastewater management in Thailand

Cited by 29 publications

References 28 publications

Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment in developing countries: A review

Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment in developing countries: A review

A Standardized Stoichiometric Life-Cycle Inventory for Enhanced Specificity in Environmental Assessment of Sewage Treatment

Beyond Energy Balance: Environmental Trade-Offs of Organics Capture and Low Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratio Sewage Treatment Systems

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