Socioeconomic Aspects of Wastewater Treatment and Water Reuse

Wastewater treatment is an essential prerequisite for water reclamation and reuse. Proper treatment and disinfection of wastewater is also a public health necessity in human communities. Treatment and distribution of recycled water involves great expenditure of resources, which in many developing countries is either lacking or is devoted to more urgent national priorities. Also, an appropriate valuation of water and its benefits to society is often lacking due to a misperception of abundance and taking water for granted—a gift of nature, to be used at will. This attitude must be changed with proper educational tools if the relatively constant amounts of water now available are to be sufficient for increasing populations of the future.

Water reuse projects face additional impediments. One major impediment is that the agreement of two or more governmental entities is required before a project can be implemented. These institutional barriers are not insurmountable, but they involve lengthy negotiations and much give-and-take on the part of the involved entities. Ideally, a single entity would be managing all matters related to the entire water cycle, but this is rare. Pricing of recycled water is another issue complicating the ability of water managers to pay the costs of implementing water-recycling projects. Recycled water is often priced significantly below the price of potable water.

Public attitude toward the reuse of reclaimed water for non-potable applications is generally positive. However, there have been several instances in California and Australia where resistance to indirect potable reuse has derailed a few otherwise excellent projects. Fortunately, public outreach and educational programs have been devised by professionals in the field for early public involvement and prevention of dissemination of misinformation by project opponents. The effects of global warming on future water supplies is not expected to be uniform everywhere, but it will be drastically limiting in certain parts of the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Already, the continent of Australia is experiencing a 10-year drought, attributed to global warming. This increases the urgency for development of water use efficiency measures, such as water recycling in these regions.