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Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for a Heavily Modified Water Body (HMWB): The Lambro-Seveso-Olona System Case Study
Abstract
The Lambro-Seveso-Olona system (L-S-O) is a effluent dominated watershed which derives from a strong urbanization process of natural river basins. The average population density in the L-S-O area is among the highest in Italy and Europe. Industry is also highly developed. Although at present the L-S-O system does not receive untreated wastewaters, depurated effluents constitute about half of its streamflow. This river has a long history of poor quality status, due to the high concentration of pollutant loads and the poor dilution. Recently new chemical quality standards have been set by the Italian legislation as support for the WFD Good Ecological Status. These standards are very restrictive, and make extremely challenging the achievement of the good ecological status. Aim of this study is to analyze the restoration possibilities of the L-S-O system. Elements are provided for a Cost-Effectiveness analysis.
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The Lambro-Seveso-Olona (L-S-O) system derives from the human regulation of the natural hydrology of the territory around Milan city area. The average population density in the L-S-O area is among the highest in Italy and Europe. Industry is also highly developed in this basin: chemical, textile, paper, pulp and food industries being the most important ones. Although, at present, the L-S-O system no longer receives the untreated wastewaters of the Milan urban area, treated wastewaters constitute about half of the streamflow. Biotic communities in this river have a long history of poor quality status, having suffered great damage due to domestic and industrial discharges. Recently, new chemical quality standards for macropollutants have been set by the Italian legislation as support for the good ecological status according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This new index is very restrictive, and it makes it extremely challenging to achieve the water quality objectives for the L-S-O system. The aim of this study is to analyse through a modelling exercise the restoration possibilities of the L-S-O system, investigating both the source apportionment of the macropollutants, the discharge limits that should be set to achieve the good quality status and their corresponding cost.
In this study a tool for the calculation of costs of different wastewater treatment and reuse scenarios has been developed. This tool, called Evaluation of Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Option (E- WA-TRO), was designed to have as end-users public administrators, water management authorities, and professionals that, in a direct and immediate manner, can automatically obtain, for a particular reuse alternative, the fundamental information for a feasibility study. In order to develop E-WA-TRO an overview was conducted of the international, national and regional regulations on water reuse and a synopsis of the possible reuse alternatives and of the appropriate treatment processes was prepared. Moreover, costs were obtained using national and international published data for the different treatment processes that might be required for the various reuse alternatives. The system has been created as a web site, in order to guarantee the highest availability and a wide diffusion and the possibility of an easy implementations of future updates and upgrades. Specifically, even non-expert user can easily navigate trough the site and use the tool to evaluate, within the national and international legal frameworks, various reuse alternatives as well as the
Cost estimates were developed for full-scale MBR reclamation systems ranging from 0.2-10 MGD. These estimates included both capital and operational costs related to the MBR process and subsequent disinfection. The costs associated with the membrane portion of the MBR systems were developed from cost quotes from four leading MBR suppliers. All other costs including headworks, biological process and disinfection costs were estimated from preliminary conceptual design. Results of the analysis showed total costs (/1000 gal) for 1-MGD MBR water reclamation systems, designed to operate on raw wastewater, ranged from 1.81-2.24. Cost estimates (/1000 gal) for 1-MGD MBR water reclamation systems designed to operate on advanced primary effluent ranged from 1.48-1.91.
The Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires that all the water bodies in Europe be protected and enhanced to achieve Good
Ecological Status by 2015. The intercalibration of the biological monitoring results of Member States has to be carried out
in relation to classification tasks to guarantee a common understanding of ‘Good Ecological Status’ at a European level. An
intercalibration exercise was carried out within the framework of different Geographical Intercalibration Groups (GIGs), each
composed of a group of countries that share similar river types and have a discrete geographical range. By means of the intercalibration
exercise, common European boundaries were proposed for river invertebrate assessment methods within each GIG. The purpose
of this study was to validate the boundaries proposed for the formal intercalibration exercise. A benchmark data set was used,
which comprised data, collected in different European countries that satisfied WFD requirements. The data set included a set
of reference sites and provided evidence of a high degree of comparability among countries. The STAR Intercalibration Common
Metric index (STAR_ICMi) was calculated for benchmark samples and was selected as the index in which national assessment boundaries
were expressed. It was applied for the intercalibration exercise in two GIGs. For the STAR_ICMi, the coefficient of variation
was also calculated, demonstrating a comparable variability with indices that are based on species level identification. A
fixed percentile of reference samples STAR_ICMi values was selected as the boundary between High and Good status. The range
from this fixed percentile to the lowest possible value was divided into four equal parts to obtain the remaining class boundaries.
The resulting High/Good and Good/Moderate boundaries were compared to the boundaries proposed by GIGs and proved to be in
line with those defined in the intercalibration exercise. Even if, for the intercalibration exercise, some procedures to check
the Member States (MS) data sets where put into practice, it is the responsibility of each state to guarantee the WFD compliancy
of their reference conditions and methods. Accordingly, the process of validation explained in this article, or similar ones,
can be an important step forward and demonstrate the comparability of the actual boundaries.
The EU Water Framework Directive, WFD (Dir. 2000/60/EC) introduces an innovative, integrated and holistic approach to the protection and management of water resources. New methodologies and tools are required to support implementation of the new policy. To fulfil these requirements, tools such as Decision Support Systems (DSSs) that integrate environmental, social and economic concerns and that facilitate the involvement of interested parties in the formulation of strategies may be useful. The MULINO project has developed a methodology and a DSS tool to tackle such problems. Focus is on connecting environmental tools and decision support methods by combining the DPSIR (Driving force, Pressure, State, Impact and Response) approach with multi-criteria analysis methods in a Decision Support System called mDSS. The proposed approach can be applied in decision processes in which a group of people (i.e. decision makers and stakeholders), share a common conceptual framework and procedure, to structure the problem, discuss the decision and communicate the proposed solution. In this paper, the MULINO approach is presented, focusing on its potential for the current implementation process of the WFD, according to the recently released guidance documents and the experience gained in several case studies carried out during the research project. The evaluation of the potential of the tool for applications in real-world management problems is carried out by taking into account the feedback from project partners and from end users, within and outside the research consortium.
The reuse of effluents for irrigation and indirect potable water uses is rapidly developing as an alternative to seawater desalination. This paper explores two membrane-based options available to treat sewage for water reuse, tertiary filtration (TF) of the effluent from a conventional activated sludge (CAS) process and an integrated membrane bioreactor (MBR). These options are compared from technical, performance and cost points of view using ZeeWeed® immersed membranes. The analysis shows that an integrated MBR is less expensive than the CAS-TF option. The total life cycle costs for the treatment of sewage to a quality suitable for irrigation reuse or for feeding reverse osmosis decrease from 0.40$/m3 to 0.20$/m3 as plant size increases to 75,000 m3/d. It is also shown that the incremental life cycle cost to treat sewage to indirect potable water reuse standards (i.e. by ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis) is only 39% of the cost of seawater desalination.
Diffuse pollution is generally indirectly estimated by area and specific emission factors as function of land use. However in many cases these estimates were proven to be remarkably inaccurate. Aim of this study was to combine a water quality simulation model, (USEPA-QUAL2E) and Factor Analysis to increase the understanding of the water pollutants source apportionment. The study concerned two different watersheds, an upland area characterised by a very scarce agricultural use, and another area covering both the upland and the lowland physiographic regions. Particularly the lowland region is included in one of the most productive agricultural areas in Italy. By comparing instream measurements with QUAL2E simulations during dry and wet weather conditions, a good fit (errors +/-20%) was found for the dry weather scenario, whereas very poor was the model performance on the wet weather scenario. This was in the same way expected since the rainfall-driven pollutants scenario deviates significantly from QUAL2E general assumptions of constant emissions in steady state streamflow conditions. However the poor fit was also due to the scarcer reliability of the adopted non point emission estimates. Despite of approximations the model wet weather simulations enabled to estimate the non point contribution to the instream load at the rainfall event scale resolution. Such diffuse sources contribution was found around 80% in the area of extensive agricultural land use, and around 40% in the upland region. Factor Analysis applied to the instream measurements data shed light on the exchange from the groundwater to the surface water system that occurred in the upland region. The hypothesis of a groundwater contribution to the instream total load of nitrates was also supported by QUAL2E simulations that, when considering only the point loads, systematically underestimate the dry weather nitrate concentrations. The same pattern was not observed for the lowland region.
The most important objective within the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is to achieve a 'good ecological status' (GES) for all waters, by 2015. Some methodologies have been developed for assessing GES within natural water bodies, in which the ecological status is a perceived or measured deviation from a reference condition. However, the WFD also consider 'Heavily modified water bodies' (HMWB) (a water body resulted from physical alterations by human activity, which substantially change its hydrogeomorphological character, e.g. a harbour). In implementing the WFD, environmental managers are required to assess the status of HMWBs in terms of achieving 'Good Ecological Potential' (GEP). This contribution defines and studies GEP from an ecological point of view, taking into account some ecological restoration principles. Finally, this contribution gives some guidance on how establish GEP, using as example a harbour within the North East Atlantic.
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