Public Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Stormwater Recycling for Irrigation

Abstract

As part of conservation measures dealing with water shortages, the City of Calgary is developing a strategy to irrigate parks using stormwater from retention ponds. Since there are no guidelines within Alberta governing this practice, a comprehensive assessment is being conducted of stormwater recycling as an adaptation strategy to climate change. A portion of this assessment involves examining potential health risks associated with stormwater recycling, as well as general public attitudes toward this strategy. To this end, a survey was administered to residents living around Inverness Park in southeast Calgary. Of 500 questionnaires mailed out, 138 respondents indicated that there was little resistance to adopting stormwater recycling, but that agencies should monitor stormwater quality and make the public aware of health risks. Users were only slightly aware of health risks posed by degraded water quality, but were not willing to accept much risk with regard to their health.Résumé :Parmi les mesures de conservation adoptées pour faire face aux pénuries d'eau, la ville de Calgary est en train d'élaborer une stratégie d'irrigation des parcs qui repose sur l'utilisation des eaux d'orage des bassins de retenue. Étant donné qu'aucune directive ne régit cette pratique en Alberta, une évaluation complète du recyclage des eaux d'orage est actuellement menée en tant que stratégie d'adaptation au changement climatique. Une partie de cette évaluation implique l'examen des éventuels risques pour la santé associés au recyclage des eaux d'orage, ainsi que des attitudes du grand public à l'égard de cette stratégie. À cette fin, une enquête a été menée auprès de la population qui habite autour du parc Inverness dans la partie sud-est de Calgary. Sur les 500 questionnaires postés, 138 répondants ont indiqué qu'ils étaient peu réticents à adopter le recyclage des eaux d'orage, mais que les organismes doivent surveiller la qualité des eaux d'orage et sensibiliser le public aux risques pour la santé. Les utilisateurs n'étaient que peu conscients des risques pour la santé que représente une qualité dégradée de l'eau, mais n'étaient pas disposés à accepter une trop grande part de risque dans la mesure où leur santé était en jeu. 186Canadian Water Resources Journal/Revue canadienne des ressources hydriques

Comparing Public Perceptions of Alternative Water Sources for Potable Use: The Case of Rainwater, Stormwater, Desalinated Water, and Recycled Water

“…For desalination schemes in Australia, 90 % agreed or strongly agreed that they felt comfortable using desalinated water for distant use whereas 77 % felt safe to use it for close purposes (King et al 2012). Similarly, acceptance of stormwater for outdoor irrigation is relatively high but support drops for uses that involve closer personal contact (Hwang et al 2006;Wu et al 2012;Leonard et al 2015a;Mankad et al 2015). For example, in a study by Leonard et al (2015a) examining public perceptions of stormwater reuse through managed aquifer recharge in South Australia, 73 % supported the use of stormwater reuse for non-potable use but support dropped to 57/55 % for direct and indirect potable schemes respectively.…”

Framework for the optimization of operation and design of systems with different alternative water sources

“…The security of supply with regard to climate change needs to be considered Cai et al 2015), as some sources are climate dependent and some are climate independent. The social acceptability of using particular sources for particular applications and the willingness of consumers to pay more for alternative source systems to be constructed and maintained may need to be incorporated (Hwang et al 2006;Londoño Cadavid and Ando 2013;Fielding et al 2015). The perception of risks associated with alternative water source systems by water system managers may also present a barrier to the implementation and success of such systems (Dobbie and Brown 2012;West et al 2016).…”

Technical and economical viability of a graywater recycling system employing an integrated preliminary settlement and filtration process

“…Besides the security reasons of graywater reuse, another obstacle against its further implementation maybe because of the lack of adequate information on the benefits of a graywater recycling system (Hwang et al 2006;Philp et al 2008;Wu et al 2012). First of all, within China, there are very limited examples of thorough monitoring of the graywater reuse in buildings.…”