Water Reuse

Objective of sustainable development of urban water systems:

·       Satisfy water demands at a cost that is affordable to the society with the minimum environmental and social impacts

·       Reuse of treated waste-water for beneficial purposes offers a potential new water supply resource that can replace existing fresh water supply at times

·       Water reuse also reduces the rigorous and costly treatment requirements for effluent discharge to surface waters

Water Reuse:

·       May have technical barriers and/or health risks associated with water reuse

·       Freshwater enters system from the surface (ground water sources) to municipal water treatment plans

o   Follows steps – water distribution, water use, wastewater discharge, wastewater treatment and then return for reuse

·       Whether or not water can be reused depends on the water quality levels

o   Criteria includes: pathogen and chemical constituents

§  Pathogen – associated with non-potable reuse of reclaimed municipal water because of risk of transmission of infectious disease

§  Chemical constituents – might affect acceptability of water for agriculture, direct potable reuse and some industrial applications

The World on Water Reuse:

·       World is facing water shortage problems and water reuse is highly practiced

o   Not in Canada – there is plenty of water here and therefore, water reuse is not practiced on a big scale

§  Used for agricultural cropland irrigation, gold course and landscape irrigation, experimental housing, and reuse of wastewater at isolated           facilities such as resorts, truck stops etc.

§  Waterloo Region:

·       Regional Municipality of Waterloo (RMW) is located in the Grand River watershed

·       Integrated urban system supplies water to approximately 425,000 people (region)

·       System consists of a complex network of 67 wells, reservoirs, pumping stations and trunk water mains

·       Average of 171.5 million liters of water supplied per day

·       Water comes from 2 sources:

o   75% from ground and 25% from surface water

·       11 waste-water treatment plants are located within region

·       Chart shows amount of indoor and outdoor residential water use in the City of Waterloo which is located in the center of the region with a 2003 population of 103000

·       Reused water can be used for many of the sections in the chart

Zhang Changyu. "A Study on Urban Water Reuse Management Modeling." UWSpace. 2005. 

   Web. <http://hdl.handle.net/10012/795>.

Maya Levinshtein

Nov. 9, 2010