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SANITASLIVING WELL WITHIN THE LIMITS OF OUR PLANET

Editors: Antonia Hadjimichael, Xavier Garcia Acosta, Fanlin Meng, Rebecca Pearce

1SANITAS – Living Well, within the Limits of our Planet

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report is based on the fourth work package (WP4) of the European Marie Curie Funded Initial Training Network: SANITAS 289193 – ‘From Science to Policy’ - led by the University of Exeter. Following the Roadmap for Uptake of EU Water Research in Policy and Industry (SPI-Water Cluster, 2012), the overarching teaching goal of WP4 was to develop the next generation of integrated urban water management professionals; capacity for visualising policy in novel and enquiring ways; and constructing a global narrative to link directly with policy-makers aiming to initiate sustainable water management. A further objective was to develop a core set of skills based on improved understanding amongst SANITAS Fellows of when and how to engage with and formulate policy inputs, to enable delivery of the EU Water Framework Directive and international water policy objectives that are key to maintaining and where possible improving environmental and human health.

The core work completed by Marie Curie Fellows in completing WP4 spanned devising new methods to identify appropriate technological developments for the effective delivery of water policies; critical analyses of innovation policy in European countries, the United States, China, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines; identifying the impacts associated with extending the benefits of new technological and policy inputs to developing countries; and considering the ethics of moving science beyond the lab to real-life situations, in quick-time, to take advantage of infrastructure renewal planning in developing countries, and the potential pit-falls in being ready to tender for infrastructure projects early.

Towards the end of the programme, SANITAS Fellows were asked to critically review their research projects from a policy perspective, to identify where their actions and outputs support and/or enhance key policy objectives that are interconnected via overall goals of sustainable development and protection of global natural capital. Taking the most recent European Environmental Action Programme as a guide, SANITAS Fellows have directly linked their individual research projects to the programmes thematic priorities, demonstrating their enhanced understanding of how and where their knowledge can be transferred to the policy arena, in pursuit of a low-carbon, circular economy, built upon sturdy foundations of sustainably managed resources and flourishing biodiverse environments.

Through the following chapters, SANITAS Fellows are attempting to forge new links between the realms of policy and research. Chapter one demonstrates the deep understanding SANITAS Fellows have developed, by assessing the factors contributing to surface water quality and enhancing the decision-making process through improved methods of cost-benefit analysis that incorporate ecosystem services information, and modelling control systems to substantially reduce nutrient levels in treated effluent. Chapter two addresses the low carbon economy and the resource efficiency strategy explored through SANITAS projects which encompass optimised system design, lifecycle assessment, nutrient, water, and biogas re-use, identifying areas where involvement in policy-making could speed up the adoption of these processes.

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Chapter three highlights the increasing problems associated with storm-water runoff and sewer overflow events. The authors look at providing tools for optimum control and potential upgrades to waste water treatment plants to eliminate the potential for toxic mixtures of micro pollutants to accumulate in vulnerable discharge areas such as the Mediterranean river basins.

In chapter four, the authors turn their gaze onto the enabling framework for delivery of sustainability objectives, strengthening connections between academics, stakeholders and legislators, that will lead to improved environmental decision support systems. And, in chapter five improvements to the evidence base for environmental legislation by filling data and knowledge gaps on the prevalence of micropollutants, greenhouse gases (nitrous

oxide and methane), and sulphur and phosphorous, in urban water systems, and effective methods of detection and removal of these pollutants. The authors highlight how all projects under the SANITAS umbrella can be used to tackle these issues and how their knowledge can be used to make integrated waste water modelling more effective.

In chapter six, securing investment through better accounting of ecosystem services and full environmental costs exposes the importance of moving towards full cost recovery in the water management system, which is consistent with a circular economy. Finally, in chapter seven, integrating environment and climate considerations into water policy and market interventions is discussed with a view to ensuring that water management is a key part of the move towards living well within the limits of our planet.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


GLOSSARY

AOB Ammonia oxidising bacteria

AD Anaerobic Digestion

ADM Anaerobic Digestion Model

ASM Activated Sludge Model

ASMN Activated Sludge Model for Nitrogen

BSM Benchmark Simulation Model

CFD Computational fluid dynamics

CSO Combined sewer overflow

DM Decision makers

DO Dissolved oxygen

DSS Decision Support System

EDCs Endocrine disrupting compounds

EDSS Environmental Decision Support System

GHG Greenhouse gas

LCA Life Cycle Assessment

MBR Membrane bioreactor

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IWA International Water Association

PAH Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

PAOs Phosphorus accumulating organisms

PhACs Pharmaceuticals

PES Payment for ecosystem services

PPP Polluter Pays Principle

RBMP River Basin Management Plan

SFX Sulphonamide antibiotic

sulfamethoxazole

TBT Antifouling biocide tributyltin

UWS Urban water system

UWWS Urban wastewater system

UWWTD Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive

WFD Water Framework Directive

WWTP Wastewater treatment plant

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SANITAS INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PROJECTS AND CODES

Research project Individual Research project

Appointed Fellow

Host Institution

3.ADecision making and multicriteria analysis (environmental and economical impacts) in UWS

Antonia Hadjimichael

UdG

1.G Energy optimization in membrane integrated systems for water reuse Julian Mamo UdG

1.EAnaerobic processes for energy conservation and biotransformation of pollutants

Lara Paulo WU

2.C Catchment based and real time based consenting Fanlin Meng UNEXE

1.C Biodegradation of micropollutants Eliza Kassotaki ICRA

2.FAssessment and control of sewer detrimental emissions for optimal Mediterranean UWS management

Joana Batista ICRA

1.BDetailed modelling of GHG emission from WWTP using integrated CFD and biological models

Usman Rehman UGent

2.B.1Development of a system–wide benchmark system for Urban Water Systems (UWS)

Ramesh Saagi LU

2.B.2Development of an enhanced benchmark system for Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs)

Kimberly Solon LU

1.APractical application of models in UWS: Simulation–based scenario analysis for reducing carbon footprint, nitrite production and micropollutant discharge in UWS operation

Laura Snip DTU

1.FImproved modelling, design and control of granular sludge reactors in future energy–positive WWTPs

Celia María Castro Barros

UGent

1.D Qualitative modelling in UWS Jose Porro UdG

2.D Integrated advanced technologies for water reuseMarina Arnaldos Orts

ACCIONA

2.A Tool development for cost effective control strategies in IUWS Bertrand Vallet AQF

2.E Advanced research for water reuse systems and impact on receiving mediaXavier Garcia Acosta

YRA

UdG = Universitat De Girona | UGent = University of Ghent | YRA = Yarqon River Authority | WU = Wageningen University

ICRA = Catalan Institute for Water Research | LU = Lund University | DTU = Technical University of Denmark | UNEXE = University of Exeter

AQF = Aquafin | ACCIONA = ACCIONA Agua

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“Living Well, within the Limits of our Planet” is the most recent Environment Action Programme of the European Union. The programme is led by the following vision for Europe’s future:

In 2050, we live well, within the planet’s ecological limits. Our prosperity and healthy environment stem from an innovative, circular economy where nothing is wasted and where natural resources are managed sustainably, and biodiversity is protected, valued and restored in ways that enhance our society’s resilience. Our low-carbon growth has long been decoupled from resource use, setting the pace for a safe and sustainable global society.

There are nine thematic priorities of Living Well:

Three key objectives

• to protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital

• to turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy

• to safeguard the Union’s citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing

Four “enabler” objectives

• better implementation of legislation

• better information by improving the knowledge base

• more and wiser investment for environment and climate policy

• full integration of environmental requirements and considerations into other policies

Two complementary horizontal-priority objectives

• to make the Union’s cities more sustainable

• to help the Union address international environmental and climate challenges more effectively.

SANITAS projects are addressing the main seven thematic priorities and the document will establish how this can be achieved.

We will also make our own suggestions on how these issues should be addressed based on evidence derived by SANITAS research.

INTRODUCTION

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Natural capital (soil, forests, seas, air, productive land, water and biodiversity) along with ecosystems that provide vital goods and services, underpin the European Union’s economic prosperity and well-being of their citizens. Being focused on urban water and wastewater systems, the SANITAS body of research is mainly focused on the protection, conservation and enhancement of the Union’s water capital, and by extension on the quality of water bodies, water-related ecosystem services, and air pollution arising from the urban water systems.

In accordance with the Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC) and the European Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD, 91/271/EE), urban water systems (UWS) comprises three main components: 1) the water treatment: responsible for treating and supplying water for all the required uses (domestic, industrial, agricultural and services); 2) the wastewater treatment: responsible for the treatment and discharge of urban wastewater with the main objective of protecting the environment from adverse effects of the aforementioned wastewater discharges; and 3) the collection and distribution system: responsible for the collection and distribution of water for use in the agglomeration and the collection of wastewater from the agglomeration, and its transportation to treatment units. In order to integrate the whole urban water cycle, and in accordance with the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC), SANITAS research incorporates also the local water bodies as an integral element of the system. These water bodies (groundwater aquifer, river, lake, transitional water body, coastal water body, artificial-surface water bodies) act as a source of water for water treatment and/or receiving the discharged treated water from wastewater treatment. Therefore, urban water system sectorial elements not only alter the water quantity and quality of the water bodies, but also significantly affect aquatic ecosystem structure and functioning and thus their provision of valuable services that contribute to the well-being of society and the environment.

Improving surface water quality

To achieve the WFD requirements, activities in all sectors need to be better controlled. In a recent report (European Environment Agency, 2012), of the overall 12,700 surface water bodies investigated, more than half of them did not reach good ecological status or potential. After investigation of pressures for water quality downgrade, diffuse pollution from agriculture was found to be a significant pressure for more than 40% of rivers and coastal waters, and more than one third of lakes and transitional waters; hydro-morphological pressures, which were mainly attributable to hydropower, navigation, agriculture, flood protection and urban development, affected around 40% of rivers and transitional waters, and 30% of lakes; point pollution from urban wastewater systems and industries constituted the third major significant pressure, influencing 22% of all surface water bodies. In contrast with the ecological classification system, the monitoring network for chemical status remained to be developed, as more than 40% of the surface water bodies were reported as having unknown chemical status. And among the water bodies examined, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals and industrial chemicals (e.g. plasticiser di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (also known as DEHP) and pesticides) are the main reasons for poor chemical status of rivers; heavy metal emissions are the major pollution source for lakes; and PAHs, heavy metals and the antifouling biocide tributyltin (TBT) are the most common culprits for transitional water bodies.

SANITAS is primarily focused on contributing to the improvement of EU water bodies’ quality, and implementing the UWWTD as well as the WFD, through the improvement in the management of sewer systems, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and the integrated management of UWS; automatic control of sewer systems, WWTPs, advanced water reuse technologies and the integrated UWS; and developing and applying tools used to minimize environmental (including energy), economic and social impacts of the UWS.

CHAPTER 1Priority objective 1: To protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital

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Ecosystem Services and biodiversity

Biodiversity and ecosystems support the most vital of our needs: food provision, supply of fresh water and clean air, shelter from natural disasters and even medicine. It is our “life insurance” (COM (2011) 244). Despite their relevance for our economy and well-being, the Union’s biodiversity is being lost and most ecosystems are seriously degraded. The EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 is aimed at reversing biodiversity loss and supporting the transition of the Union to a resource-efficient, green economy. As such, it is an integral part of the Resource-Efficient Europe Flagship Initiative (COM (2011) 21) and Europe 2020 Strategy (COM (2010) 2020).

Ecosystems services are “the benefits humans derive from nature” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). This is an innovative approach with the aim of valuing the benefits society receives from ecosystems. The value of the different aspect of ecosystem services, especially the economic, could help stakeholders to understand the importance of maintaining ecosystems’ functioning and the need to integrate water and wastewater management. Principally due to our poor understanding of the role of ecosystems and their processes in water provision, incorporating them in UWS decision making is a complex and troublesome task. There is a great need for methodologies to coherently value and price (tangible and intangible) ecosystem services for the UWS sector and for innovative management schemes and approaches incorporating water-related ecosystem services.

Within SANITAS, a cost-benefit analysis integrating marketed and non-marketed benefits was applied for the research project 2.E to assess the feasibility, in economic terms, of the Yarqon River Rehabilitation project (Israel). The costs included both the capital costs of implementing rehabilitation measures (including maintenance costs) and the opportunity costs of foregone users (water provisioning for agriculture), whereas the benefits of rehabilitation included the increase in the ecosystem service provision of aesthetic information (hedonic pricing method), opportunities for recreation (value function transfer), and gene-pool protection (replacement cost). The result of the cost-benefit analysis for a 30-years period showed that the net present value of the rehabilitation project is approximately $151 million.

Value of Ecosystem Services

“Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss.” is the EU 2020 biodiversity target (COM(2011) 244). Underpinning this headline target is the understanding that biodiversity and important ecosystem services have significant economic value that is seldom captured in markets. This often leads to the true value of these ecosystem services to not be considered while assessing the trade-offs of urban water systems-related decisions, basically because stakeholders mostly do not pay for them. The economic valuation of ecosystem services trade-offs can be useful to develop an informational base for more rational decision-making on the allocation of scarce natural resources and, thus, tackling the informational failure that causes the underestimation of value of these services without a market. Therefore, valuing the trade-offs concerning ecosystem services among alternative decisions within the urban water system might prove valuable to cope with the lack of information/awareness of the consequences of the decision, supporting thus a more informative assessment.

Nutrient release/nutrient cycle (nitrogen and phosphorus)

Anthropogenic activities have been causing disruptions to the nutrient cycles (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus). Water bodies can tolerate a range of concentrations of nutrients, but beyond threshold values the performance of these ecosystems to treat them is likely to be reduced (Odum et al., 1979). Excessive nutrient discharge in water bodies from wastewater treatment plants promotes eutrophication, a process where water bodies receive excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth. Eutrophication depletes the oxygen in the water and limits the penetration of sunlight, with the consequent negative effects on biodiversity and disrupting the production of valuable ecosystem services. It is still one of the main environmental problems worldwide (Smith and Schindler, 2009).

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Phosphorus and nitrogen inputs to the Union’s water bodies have decreased considerably over the past 20 years, due to the investment and development or upgrading of wastewater treatment plants. Nevertheless, excessive nutrient releases from effluent continue to negatively affect the water bodies’ ecological status. Inadequate wastewater treatment urgently needs to be tackled to achieve further significant reduction of nutrients discharge. Technological and scientific advances on wastewater treatment and integrated urban water systems management, as these achieved by SANITAS, will definitely contribute to improve the effluent water quality and reduce the environmental impact. These have been mainly focused on developing modelling and control strategies and decision-support tools to improve the wastewater treatment and urban water systems processes.

Concluding remarks and ways forward

By expanding the knowledge base in multiple water-based academic disciplines (modelling, control, and decision support) on different element within the urban water cycle (sewer systems, WWTP, water reuse, integrated UWS), SANITAS seeks to contribute to the fulfilment of the Urban Waste Water Directive, as well as the WFD. Improving the water quality in the Union’s water bodies will reduce negative environmental effects such as eutrophication, loss of biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems, protect the water-related natural capital, and ensure the provision of valuable ecosystem services.

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Valuable raw materials such as fuels, minerals and metals, as well as other resources including soil, water, air, biomass, food and ecosystems, underpin human welfare and the well-functioning of the European economy. However, pressures on natural resources are increasing with the rapidly growing population and urbanisation, especially in developing and emerging economies (OECD and CDRF, 2010). The security of supply is threatened if the current pattern of intensive resource use continues. A sustainable solution to this is to improve the efficiency of resource use, which not only secures growth but also offers great job and economic opportunities.

Urban wastewater systems (UWWSs) have been widely developed to treat wastewater to an acceptable level before discharging to the receiving water body to protect the environment. By traditional treatment methods however, the UWWSs require energy and other resource inputs and produce Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHGs) (Figure 2.1a). To minimise the adverse impact to the environment, SANITAS projects have investigated a range of resource-efficient strategies that could reduce resource consumption rate (i.e. fewer raw materials demands) and turn waste (GHGs, wastewater) to resources (water, energy, nutrient) (Figure 2.1b).

CHAPTER 2Priority objective 2: To turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy

Figure 2.1 (b) Reduced adverse impact from the urban wastewater systems by resource-efficient strategies

Environment

Treatedwastewater

GHGs

Environment

Treatedwastewater

GHGs

Wastewater Urban wastewater systems

Energy & materials

Energy & materials

Wastewater

Reused water, nutrient, biogas, etc.

Urban wastewater systems

Figure 2.1 (a) The impact of traditional wastewater treatment strategies

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Energy efficient strategies

Increased dependence on energy imports and scarce energy resources have raised economic and political concerns among European Union members. Along with the economic crisis and climate change threat the Union is faced with unprecedented challenges. The concept of energy efficiency can be a valuable means in tackling these challenges. By reducing primary energy consumption, the Union’s supply security will be increased and greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. SANITAS projects have identified a few innovative technological solutions to improve energy efficiency of the UWWSs through optimised system design and operation.

Optimised system design

a) Environmental Decision Support System Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSSs) are

intelligent information systems, integrating mathematical models and automatic control with knowledge-based systems, that can support the decision making process in an environmental domain.

NOVEDAR_EDSS

The selection of the most appropriate wastewater treatment is a complex process as several factors should be taken into account: new wastewater treatment challenges, an increasing number of available technologies, and the need to include different types of criteria.

EDSSs appear to be an efficient approach to deal with this complex process since they allow integration of data and experience to include knowledge from different fields, and the use of different experts to justify the proposals based on a multi-criteria assessment. In this sense, the NOVEDAR_EDSS streamlines technology evaluations by integrating technology performance, cost, and environmental impact data all into one platform. Moreover all the information and knowledge collected is retrieved in an easy way, since different alternatives will be evaluated.

Therefore, NOVEDAR_EDSS allows the reduction of the time required in the alternatives-selection stage while improving the final results and justifying the proposals. NOVEDAR_EDSS has many applications which can be grouped in three different fields: technical, administration and promotional. It is a useful tool for engineers working on wastewater treatment plant design, as they can use this tool to select treatment alternatives but it can also act as a source of knowledge. As for the administration department, the NOVEDAR_EDSS is useful to prepare tender projects and to justify their selection in tenders. Finally, other applications are related to promotional eco-practices in the industry and water utilities.

Currently, this tool is in the stage of industrialization within an industrial doctorate framework between Aqualogy and the University of Girona.

Alba Castillo Llorens: a.castillogtaqualogy.net Industrial PhO student) Vicente COmez Martinez: ygornezmaaqualogy.net (Aqualogy supervisor) Manel Poch Espallargas: [email protected] (Lequia supervisor)

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b) Life Cycle Assessment Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a technique to

quantify the impacts associated with all the stages of a product, service, or process, from cradle-to-grave. It is designed to evaluate - and even possibly reduce - the environmental impact for the entire life cycle of said product, service or process (ISO, 2006). There have been multiple examples of the LCA method being applied for estimating environmental impacts from urban water systems, typically wastewater systems. During cooperation between SANITAS project 3.A and network partner Waterschap de Dommel, a LCA was performed for a wastewater treatment plant and sludge treatment. The study facilitated a) a better understanding of the main contributing factors of the process to the various impact categories (such as climate change, marine eutrophication, human toxicity and others); and b) a comparison of the current treatment situation against proposed technologies or methods to be implemented at the plant.

Optimised system operation

Besides improved system design for energy efficiency, SANITAS projects also investigate the optimisation of operational plans in traditional activated sludge treatment process, granular activated sludge systems or membrane systems. For instance, results from project 2.C suggest that significant energy savings can be achieved by optimising an integrated control strategy of a benchmark urban wastewater system (more than 50% in the case study investigated) (F. Meng et al. 2014). Further benefits are achievable by implementing real-time control strategies to exploit the dynamic capacity of the environment (e.g. high river flow rate) without detrimental impacts (F. Meng et al. 2013).

Waste reduction strategies

Granular activated sludge for anammox

Conventional nitrification-denitrification over nitrate is an effective technology to remove nitrogen from wastewater, but it is energy intensive (for aeration) and often needs the addition of chemicals. Furthermore, conventional treatment processes yield a considerable amount of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). For example, fossil fuel consumption for energy use results in CO2 emission in WWTPs. Nitrogen removal emits N2O, a very strong GHG that accounts for 298-CO2 equivalents in 100 year horizon (IPCC, 2013 ch8, p714).

Emerging treatment technologies such as partial nitrification-anammox (PNA) are promising solutions for sustainable wastewater treatment due to the lower energy demand (up to 63% less than conventional treatments), minimal CO2 emissions and sludge production, and higher effectiveness of nitrogen removal. Granular sludge is a special type of biofilm in which bacteria grow in compact aggregates (granules). Compared to biomass growing in flocs, granular biomass is denser and has very high settling velocity, which allows high loads in the reactors with lower footprint and no biomass washout. Furthermore, granules can hold different bacterial species with different conditions, which makes it suitable to perform PNA (Castro-Barros et al., 2015) .

SANTAS project 1.F investigates optimal design and control strategies of granular sludge reactors to minimise energy requirements whilst reducing GHG (CO2 and N2O) emissions. Results show that by optimising operational st rategy (e.g. aeration intensity), GHG emissions can be greatly reduced, and the required process efficiency can be maintained at a reasonable cost.

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Resource reuse strategies

Water reuse strategies

According to the WFD, good status for groundwater bodies requires both good chemical and quantitative status. However, water scarcity is reported in nearly all river basin districts in the Mediterranean area. Two out of three groundwater bodies were reported as not being in good quantitative status, with abstraction being mentioned as a significant pressure. To address this the EU encourages reclamation of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation (seasonal demand), landscape irrigation (seasonal demand), industrial reuse (site specific), non-potable urban use (limited volumes), environmental uses (site specific), indirect potable reuse through groundwater recharge (site specific), indirect potable reuse through surface water augmentation (site specific) and direct potable.

The membrane bioreactor (MBR) is a low-footprint and robust technology that constitutes the state-of-the-art in wastewater treatment and reclamation. Through the combination of a suspended growth bioreactor and a membrane process for solids separation, MBR processes deliver a high-quality effluent that is amenable for reuse. SANTAS projects 1.G and 2.D both investigate improved design and operation of MBR systems for water reuse (Arnaldos M. et al. 2015).

Biogas reuse strategies

Wastewater is a source of organic matter that can be used to produce biogas, a potent and useful renewable energy source. The most common and applied treatment to fulfil this objective is Anaerobic Digestion (AD). During AD, complex organic matter will be degraded to smaller products and, finally to biogas. AD can also be applied to the sludge produced during wastewater treatment, which enables more biogas recovery. Nowadays, biogas can be recovered efficiently and be used to supply energy to the wastewater treatment plant itself, or be sold and used, for example, as a fuel to public transportation, as is already done in Sweden.

SANITAS project 1.E studies the microbiology of methanogenesis to optimise biogas formation from organic rich wastewater under conditions of metals and chlorinated compounds biotransformation.

Nutrient reuse strategies

Excessive discharge of phosphorus from WWTP to surface waters is not only a main cause of eutrophication, but is also a waste of resource as phosphate rock (main global source of phosphorus) is a limited and critical raw material in the EU. Compared to the common phosphorus removal method by precipitation with metals, struvite precipitation (Nathan O. Nelson et al. 2003) is a more environmentally viable option that not only removes phosphorus from the wastewater but also generates a product which can be used as a fertilizer.


The implementation of water and biogas recycling and reuse faces important barriers, both technically and politically: there is a very limited institutional capacity to formulate and institutionalise recycling, reclamation and reuse measures; financial incentives are not sufficient to stimulate implementation; and public perceptions towards water reuse are still a complication.

With regards to technical bottlenecks, there is a clear need for innovative treatment options to produce and test reclaimed water for several (residential, urban, industrial and agricultural) uses and to allow for a balance between the ever-growing needs of human and economic activities and environmental requirements. The development of these innovative solutions should of course be done with the active involvement of all the relevant stakeholders and a strong consideration for the health and wellbeing of aquatic ecosystems.

Although a range of complex and interlocking approaches have been suggested for building a resource-efficient Europe, synergies (e.g. GHGs emission and energy efficiency) or trade-offs (energy efficiency and environmental quality) effects may exist within each approach or across different approaches on various environmental concerns. Thus synergies should be optimised and trade-offs addressed in adopting a technical solution or agreeing policy that will nurture positive synergies.

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Prominent among the concerns of the Union’s general public remain environmental stressors such as water pollution, air pollution and chemicals. Immediate action is necessary, especially in urbanised areas, where both people and ecosystems are exposed to high levels of pollution. In order to address the concerns and ensure a healthy environment for the people of the Union, adequate national and Union-wide policy should support the application of local measures and initiatives.

The first cycle of implementation the WFD RBMPs is coming to an end in 2015. Yet, it is becoming more apparent that the environmental objectives set by the WFD are still far from total fulfilment: only just over half of the Union’s water bodies have achieved the Good Ecological Status as of the time of writing. As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change are becoming clearer and more imminent, the issues of droughts, water scarcity as well as flood risks are under renewed policy attention.

Adverse consequences of floods and storm events

Good quality surface waters and especially the ones provided for bathing and other activities benefit both human health and economic activities, including the tourism industry. In the era of the anthropocene, the adverse impacts of floods and storm events are already being experienced in bigger numbers and intensities. Human activities have a big role to play in that either by directly altering land morphology and the hydrological cycle or by indirectly inducing changes in the climate and the phenomena this entails. The environmental, social and economic consequences of floods and droughts are well recognised and future climate change is expected to aggravate their occurrence and impacts. Integrated risk management approaches will be needed to deal with these impacts in the UWS: prevention, adaptation, response and recovery are all concepts to be addressed by water and wastewater utilities and managers.

Indeed presently, in spite of expanding infrastructure to safely transport and treat all the wastewater, it is not always possible to achieve a good treatment for all the wastewater. The continuous increase of impervious areas due to urbanisation has made the management of storm-water runoff an important challenge for urban planners (Wenger et al., 2009). Rainfall is largely conveyed to underground sewer systems and is mixed with municipal and industrial wastewater in the case of combined sewer systems. Mainly due to historical aspects most European cities are operating combined sewer systems. During severe rain events the drainage capacity of sewers is often not sufficient for the total amount of combined flow that needs to be conveyed to a wastewater treatment plant. The excess water has to therefore be released directly to water streams without adequate treatment - so-called combined sewer overflow (CSO) events. CSO events pose a serious threat for the environment due to the large amounts of pollutants present, such as solids, organic matter, nutrients, metals, organic compounds and pathogenic microorganisms among others (Gasperi et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2005). Without the application of control CSOs in urban areas occur typically between 10 and 60 times per year (Novotny, 2003). During heavy rains, choosing the least sensitive discharge locations and controlling the CSOs will reduce the risk to humans and the environment and ensure the preservation of ecosystem services to society.

Within SANITAS project 2.A, a phenomenological tool for impact assessment of CSOs was developed to evaluate the optimal control strategies to limit the impact of pollution load during rain events on receiving waters. The phenomenological CSO model was also coupled with an uncertainty and cost optimization toolbox. Using the CSO model UWS managers can study the control potential of an existing sewer system and identify the most relevant structure to reduce the volume and improve the quality of water released to the river. This decision-support tool can also be a valuable resource to stimulate discussion between urban drainage and river managers for an integrated UWS management.

CHAPTER 3Priority objective 3: To safeguard the Union’s citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing

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Micropollutants

Chemical pollution of long lasting compounds in water bodies has been identified within the top ten environmental concerns of the 21st century. Horizontal chemicals legislation such as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals (REACH), provides baseline protection for human health and the environment and ensures stability and predictability for economic operators. However, there is still great uncertainty regarding the full impacts of various chemicals, nanomaterials, chemicals that interfere with the endocrine (hormone) system (endocrine disruptors) and chemicals in products. The effect of persistent chemical compounds found at trace concentrations (ng/L), namely micropollutants such as pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in our water bodies is of important ecotoxicological concern for both human health and ecosystems. For instance, prolonged exposure to low doses of antibiotics results in the selective proliferation of resistant bacteria, which could lead to the transfer of resistance genes to other bacterial species (Baquero et al., 2008). In addition, the presence and fate of EDCs have raised the public attention since the discovery of the feminization of male fish and other aquatic organisms exposed to WWTP effluents where these compounds are abundant. The main source of these micropollutants comes from human consumption (Liu et al., 2009). Once administered, PhACs are metabolised to varying degrees, and their excreted metabolites and unaltered parent compounds can also undergo further modification due to biological, chemical and physical processes in both sewage treatment facilities and receiving water bodies. For this, one of the main pathways of micropollutants into the aqueous environment is through the WWTP (Ternes et al. 2004). Yet, municipal WWTPs are generally not equipped to remove PhACs and EDCs, as they were built and upgraded with the principal aim of removing easily or moderately biodegradable compounds (e.g. carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus) and microbiological organisms. Moreover, the chemical and physical properties of these compounds (solubility, volatility, adsorbability, absorbability, biodegradability, polarity and stability), vary greatly with obvious repercussions on their behaviour during the treatment and consequently on their removal efficiencies.

Currently the vast majority of the Union’s treated wastewater is either discharged directly into coastal bodies or received by rivers and streams which ultimately also end up discharged into coastal water bodies. The release of some PhACs into surface water bodies may therefore pose a medium-high (acute) risk to aquatic life. Furthermore, many other compounds, even if their environmental risk had been found to be low, are discharged at high daily mass loads, which could contribute to negative effects on aquatic organisms in the long term due to chronic and mixture toxicities. For example, environmental concentrations can be higher than their predicted no effect concentrations. The problem magnifies in effluent-dominant rivers whose dilution capacity and self-purifying processes are insufficient to temper the risk to aquatic life. The bioaccumulation of trace organic compounds is a subject that needs to be addressed if we are to protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital. This is especially the case for Mediterranean river basins due to their particular hydrology (water scarcity), the management of which requires more urgent attention. WWTPs need to be upgraded with effective treatment technologies to control the risks caused by these micropollutants.

Ecosystem restoration

“Measures to enhance ecological and climate resilience, such as ecosystem restoration and green infrastructure, can have important socio-economic benefits, including for public health.”

Risks to ecosystems in the anthropocene are significant. Water quality is impacted by a number of factors, including insufficiently treated discharges and sewage overflows, diffuse pollution, legacies from the past, discharges from factories and sewers, and nutrients and crop protection agents used in agriculture. Around the world, societies aim to maintain and improve ecosystem quality in order to enjoy the several benefits stemming from them. In the context of UWS particularly, surface waters provide services for recreational activities (for example swimming, fishing, rowing and other water sports) and users of these services enjoy clean surface water (OECD, 2014). Agricultural practices, such as irrigation, benefit from good quality of surface and groundwater (van Gaalen et al., 2012). The industrial sector also benefits from water of sufficient quality being used for industrial practices (OECD, 2014). Healthy

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aquatic ecosystems do not only benefit the direct users of water services, but also everyone that uses a service indirectly (e.g. consumer of agricultural products) or merely values the existence of the service (e.g. knowing that beautiful natural environment is in proximity). Improved qualities for aquatic ecosystems and the associated increase of biodiversity and environmental assets could therefore “have important socio-economic benefits, including for public health”. Studies have also shown that people attach value to living in a beautiful natural environment and have often indicated willingness to pay for improved water quality and restored ecosystems (OECD, 2014).

The restoration of the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems will ensure the provision of goods and services that contribute to the human well-being. Actions focused the restoration can improve the integrity and resilience towards environment-related pressures and the provisioning of these valuable services.

3.1 Yarqon River Authority Case Study

The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project

The Yarqon River flows through the Tel-Aviv Metropolitan Area and was once the second biggest river in terms of volume of flow in Israel. Before the 1950’s, its annual discharge was 220 million m3 coming mainly from springs supplied by a large karst aquifer. However, after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the demand for water for agricultural, industrial and drinking purposes increased, and so the pumping rates from the aquifer almost ended the flow of spring water into the Yarqon River. Additionally, the increased flow of poorly treated sewage, both urban and industrial, had a severe impact on the river’s ecosystems. The attempt to change the situation in the river began with the creation of the Yarqon River Authority (YRA) in 1988. In the last 20 years, the YRA has implemented or been involved in several rehabilitation projects as part of the River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP), such as the upgrading of the basin’s wastewater treatment plants in order to obtain high quality tertiary effluents to restore the flow of the river and its dependent riparian habitat. The actions conducted by the YRA have successfully changed the condition of the river itself and, in many aspects, transformed the riparian landscape of the river area from a backyard to a front yard.


Environmental objectives set by the WFD and other directives and Union initiatives are still far from total fulfilment. The environmental, social and economic consequences of floods and droughts are well recognised and future climate change is expected to aggravate their occurrence and impacts. Integrated risk management approaches will be needed to deal with these impacts in the UWS: prevention, adaptation, response and recovery are all concepts to be addressed by water and wastewater utilities and managers.

There is still great uncertainty regarding the full impacts of various chemicals, nanomaterials, chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system and chemicals in products, namely micropollutants. The bioaccumulation of trace organic compounds is a subject that needs to be urgently addressed if we are to protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital and WWTPs need to be upgraded with effective treatment technologies to control the risks caused by these micropollutants.

Risks to ecosystems in the anthropocene are significant, while around the world societies aim to maintain and improve ecosystem quality in order to enjoy the many benefits stemming from them. The restoration of the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems will ensure the provision of goods and services that contribute to the human well-being.

The Enabling Framework

“Achieving the above-mentioned priority thematic objectives requires an enabling framework which supports effective action.”


The Water Framework Directive was established in 2000 to address challenges faced by EU waters in a comprehensive manner and aims to achieve good status for all water bodies in the EU by 2015. However, according to a report by the European Environmental Agency (EEA, 2012) and river basin management plans (RBMPs) by Member States, only 42 % of surface water bodies held good or high ecological status in 2009, and the figure for 2015 was predicted to be 53 %, still far from meeting the Directive objectives. The lack of cooperation among the different stakeholders, partly due to lack of integration of the EU water legislation, is hampering the actual implementation of many well-intentioned water policy initiatives. Thus cooperation between stakeholders and academics from multiple disciplines should be strengthened along with the integration of EU urban water policies.

SANITAS projects have investigated strategies to enhance WFD implementation by improving knowledge base of environmental science and technology (see Chapter 5 for more information), exploring innovative regulatory approaches on wastewater discharges, and exploring tools/method to facilitate stakeholder engagement and improve science-policy interface (Figure 4.1). The strategies are expected to contribute to improving compliance rates on urban wastewater treatment and enhancing environmental quality in river basin scales.

Innovative permitting approach on wastewater effluent discharges

End-of-pipe permitting is a widely practiced approach to control environmental risk imposed by wastewater discharges. However, the effectiveness of the traditional regulation paradigm is being challenged by increasingly complex environmental issues, ever growing public expectations, and the need for cost-effective approaches. Based on advanced UWWS modelling, a smart, operational control-based permitting framework, rather than traditional end-of-pipe limits, is proposed by SANITAS project 2.C

CHAPTER 4Priority objective 4: To maximise the benefits of Union environment legislation by improving implementation

Figure 4.1 SANITAS strategies for improved implementation of environmental objectives in EU

Technology• Improved operation of urban wastewater system;

• Emerging wastewater treatment technologies;

Implementation• Tools to facilitate stakeholder engagement, strengthen science-policy interface;

Policy• Innovative effluent wastewater discharge permitting

Science• Biodegradation of micropollutants;

• Microbiology of methanogenesis;

• Improved modellling of urban wastewater systems;


to maximize urban wastewater system performance in a reliable, energy and environmentally efficient manner. A range of tools has been employed including integrated system modelling, multi-objective optimization and visual analytics, to establish a four-step smart permitting framework:

Step I: Selection of system performance indicators to represent different interests;

Step II: Multi-objective optimization of the control strategies to reveal objective trade-offs;

Step III: Visual analytics to screen high performance solutions; and

Step IV: Permit deriving to include control parameters.

Stakeholders are engaged in the whole permitting process to facilitate the development of sustainable solutions that achieve balanced benefits. Results suggest that despite the effectiveness in restricting WWTP effluent discharge quality, the end-of-pipe permitting approach is insufficient in controlling other aspects of system behaviour. A more stringent regulation by traditional permitting approach may produce undesirable outcomes. However, by regulation on operational controls, more reliable and energy efficient solutions can be achieved and ensured.

Tools for stakeholder engagement

In accordance with the definition of urban water systems (see chapter 1) which integrates the whole urban water cycle, successful management of urban water systems needs involvement of several urban water system stakeholders from very different sectors. It needs complex integration of cross-sectorial urban water cycle stakeholders, such as in sectors of water sanitation, water supply, watershed authorities, environmental agencies, local authorities, among others. However, the contrasting visions and responsibilities in the management of water resources

among these stakeholders make cooperation and complex endeavour. In order to improve implementation of water legislations, researchers have developed systematic tools to make cooperation and engagement of stakeholders a realizable task. As a way to stimulate the urban water cycle stakeholders’ engagement in UWS decision-making process, SANITAS has contributed to the development of Environmental Decision Support Systems.

Tools for strengthening science-policy interface

In spite of the rapid advances in the knowledge base and tools for environmental protection, they are not always in a meaningful format/language for decision makers (DMs). For example, there is a need to integrate and synthesize outputs from diverse tools and indicators into easily understandable and transferable output for DMs. SANITAS project 3.A is developing such tools in the area of urban water systems. A method is established to support decision making in UWS assessing the system’s technical, legal, economic, environmental performance under different present and future scenarios. This tool helps to equip those involved in implementing environmental legislation at Union, national, regional and local levels (i.e. the DMs) with the knowledge, tools and capacity to improve the governance of the enforcement process.


A selection of tools and innovative approach of environmental regulation are presented in this chapter. The decision-making tools facilitate the trade-off analysis of various interests; the flexible permitting approach involved relevant stakeholders into the permitting process so that maximum environmental benefits can be achieved. However, there is still a need for institutional and regulatory frameworks that are conducive to the adoption of innovative approaches.

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Environmental monitoring, data, indicators and assessments, as well as formal scientific research are fundamental to the implementation of the Union’s environment legislation. However, the fast pace of developments and the growing uncertainties surrounding likely future challenges requires further steps to maintain and strengthen this knowledge and evidence base. This will ensure that the development and implementation of policy in the Union continues to draw on a sound understanding of the state of the environment and possible response actions with their consequences.

Filling data and knowledge gaps

Degradation of micropollutants

The advances in analytical technology in the past 15 years have allowed the detection and quantification of micropollutants even at very low concentrations (ng/L), thus enabling the study of their occurrence. This is the consequence of the increasing number of chemicals (from 50,000 up to 100,000) which are being commercially manufactured by industry, subsequently used in households and finally released to the environment through wastewater (Mackay et al., 2006). However little progress has been done in the field of occurrence studies, and up-to-date precautions and monitoring actions have not been well established due to some limiting factors that are presented below:

• Removal efficiencies are compound dependent (due to the different chemical and physical characteristics of PhACs and operational conditions)

• Variation of PhACs in production and administration as well as between countries and over time

• Instrumental errors due to low level concentrations (both in influent and effluent of WWTPs)

To improve and expand on the current knowledge base certain duties are in order:

• Determination of target compounds such as widely prescribed anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, based on their presence (most frequently detected), on their persistence and on their environmental risk, for example sulfamethoxazole (SFX), ibuprofen, and diclofenac).

• Specification of a treatment technology (or a combination of technologies), that could assure complete or efficient removal of various micropollutants, while keeping the carbon footprint as low as possible.

• Implementation of the best available technologies in WWTPs to remove micropollutants.

SANITAS, is trying to contribute towards that direction by filling data and knowledge gaps. One of the projects, project 1.C is investigating the biodegradation and removal mechanisms of target micropollutants. More specifically, the project is aiming to elucidate the parameters that regulate the biodegradation of micropollutants in order to develop the basis for the implementation of new technologies. New technologies can be used to upgrade our existing treatment systems and avoid the release of these contaminants into the environment. More specifically, SFX has been frequently detected in WWTPs and surface waters. Up-to-date investigations pertaining to SFX elimination are marked by inconsistent results. Advanced treatment processes are promising compared to the conventional ones, but limitations are posed due to maintenance and operational costs. Hence, biodegradation is considered to be one of the most promising technologies due to its low cost and its potential for complete micropollutants removal. The aim of the 1.C project is to explore the biodegradation capacity of an enriched Ammonia oxidising bacteria (AOB) culture and to investigate whether AOB are able to degrade SFX and if so, under which conditions. The first results obtained were promising, but more tests are currently under way in order to verify these findings.

CHAPTER 5Priority objective 5: To improve the knowledge and evidence base for Union environment policy

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Greenhouse gasses and formation in urban wastewater systems

Recent studies indicate that build-up of methane (CH4) in sewer systems occurs under certain conditions. CH4 is biologically generated by methanogenic archaea that consume volatile fatty acids dissolved in wastewater. In addition of being explosive at low concentrations, CH4 is one of the main greenhouse gas contributors to global warming, with a lifespan of about 12 years and a global warming potential of roughly 21–23 times higher than carbon dioxide. To date, CH4 production from sewer systems has been largely overlooked as the latest report from the IPCC concerning greenhouse emissions did not consider CH4 production from closed or underground sewer systems (IPCC, 2006). SANITAS project 2.F studied the formation of CH4 in underground sewer systems by measuring its production rates in experimental tests carried out on a weekly basis. Molecular techniques were also used in the monitoring.

The global warming potential of nitrous oxide (N2O) is 298 times greater than carbon dioxide (IPCC, 2013) and therefore research on N2O emissions has become a point of attention in recent research. N2O production within the wastewater treatment process can be related to different biochemical pathways such as heterotrophic denitrification (von Schulthess et al., 1994), Ammonia oxidising bacteria (AOB) denitrification (Bock et al., 1995) and from Phosphorus accumulating organisms (PAOs) (Ahn et al., 2001). Several modelling studies have been performed to quantify N2O emissions taking different pathways into account. Common consensus is found on the activated sludge model for nitrogen (ASMN) of Hiatt and Grady (2008) on a four step heterotrophic denitrification that includes N2O as an intermediate. Mampaey et al. (2013), on the other hand, also included N2O and nitric oxide (NO) production due to AOB. From these studies it is understood that dissolved oxygen (DO) plays a key role in quantifying N2O production and, hence, emissions. SANITAS project 1.B is providing new insight into N2O emissions by coupling computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and biological models for detailed N2O production, while project 1.D complements the progression of the mechanistic description and understanding of N2O

production with a knowledge-based risk assessment modelling approach.

The main source of CH4 from WWTP is related to anaerobic digestion units (Daelman et al., 2012). CH4 is formed during anaerobic digestion by methanogens and it is used to produce energy as biogas. However, part of the CH4 is solved in the liquid phase that leaves the anaerobic digester (reject water) and can be released to the environment in the subsequent processes. SANITAS project 1.F studies the feasibility of ammonium and CH4 removal from reject water in granular sludge reactors by simultaneous modelling of anammox technology and Nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (N-damo). This process has interesting potential applications from reject water treatment, which may contribute to reduce the GHGs during reject water treatment.

Developing modelling tools

Modelling of processes and systems is an invaluable tool in the context of UWS to i) design and optimize complex processes, ii) acquire knowledge of intricate interactions, and iii) predict system behaviour.

Plant-wide and System-wide modelling - Benchmark simulation models (BSMs)

BSMs are developed by the International Water Association (IWA) task group on Benchmarking of Control Strategies for WWTPs (Gernaey et al., 2014). These models describe various biological & physico-chemical processes within a WWTP and provide users with tools to evaluate control strategies in an objective manner. These simulation tools consider different pollutants (C, N, P at the moment; S, micropollutants to be included via SANITAS) and are a platform to test different control strategies and assess them based on certain performance indices related to quality of water discharged, associated costs, and risks. BSMs for WWTPs will be enhanced with new unit operations (e.g. reject water treatment) and descriptions of processes (e.g. physicochemistry, fate of micropollutants, etc.) within SANITAS. This enhanced BSM can be used to develop and verify different control strategies using simulation-based scenario analysis to optimize plant performance in terms of effluent quality, energy efficiency and energy production (e.g. biogas from anaerobic digestion).

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Additionally, the 2.B.2 project is extending the ADM1 with the pollutants sulphur and phosphorus. This entails addition of other relevant components such as iron which chemically reacts with both sulphur and phosphorus to produce mineral precipitates and thereby reducing/removing sulphur and phosphorus from the wastewater. Modelling mineral precipitation requires a good physico-chemical description in order to predict pH correctly which determines how much mineral will be precipitated. And in this line, a physicochemical model will also be developed wherein corrections due to ionic strength effects, ion pairing, and weak acid-base reactions are taken into account. The physico-chemical model can also be applied to other biological models such as the ASMs. The current BSM plant (BSM2: Gernaey et al., 2014) is designed for carbon and nitrogen removal. As phosphorus and sulphur are becoming significant pollutants, they should also be taken into account in a plant-wide context. Including these extensions to the ADM1 and in the future to other wastewater treatment models will then allow benchmarking of and designing control strategies for sulphur and phosphorus removal.

SANITAS project 2.B.1 will also extend the BSM to integrate the subsystems of the UWS (sewer system and receiving waters) with the WWTPs. A system-wide BSM can be very useful to not only improve our knowledge on the interactions of various wastewater subsystems but also to evaluate future scenarios. These system wide modelling tools evaluate the performance based on receiving water quality indicators and hence are a direct way of measuring the effect of changes, upgrades to a system on the rivers. The existing plant-wide BSM is used as the starting point and models for catchment, sewer system and receiving waters are developed. The catchment model is capable of simulating the diurnal and seasonal variations in wastewater generation and also the effect of rain events on combined and separate sewer systems. A sewer network model with various storage possibilities is also developed. The receiving water system is modelled based on the principles of River Water Quality Model 1 (Reichert et al., 2001). Interfaces are developed to link the sewer and WWTPs models with rivers. As all the model sub systems are available on a single platform, exchange of information across the sub systems in real-time is possible. This gives ample opportunities to

evaluate integrated control strategies on a system-wide scale. Such an integrated model of the UWS can optimize simultaneous utilization of the storage capacity of the sewer systems, wastewater treatment operation, and the consideration of the diluting and assimilating capacity of the river.

Modelling for GHG emissions

The emission of N2O during the treatment process has been studied by SANITAS project 1.B by coupling CFD and biological models for detailed N2O production. From previous studies it is understood that N2O production largely depends on oxygen concentrations. Oxygen in wastewater treatment systems is provided by aeration, which is both a source of oxygen and mixing. Current modelling techniques using systemic models do not take local mixing into account and thus average out local variations in predicting concentrations. These systemic models are calibrated by changing the kinetic parameters such as half saturation coefficient of oxygen and ammonia, however recent studies have shown that there might be other phenomena, such as mixing, playing a vital role in predicting the true concentrations (Arnaldos et al., 2014). CFD is a method able to account for spatial effects and study the influence of design parameters and phenomena at local scale. Studies have shown more improved systemic model structures can also be obtained using CFD (Le Moullec et al. 2010a). Moreover, project 1.B has integrated hydrodynamic and biokinetic modelling using the ASM1 for a full scale WWTP and has demonstrated the effect of mixing on local system performance (Rehman et al., 2014). Therefore extending the latter by incorporating models predicting nitrous oxide concentrations would result in more accurate and realistic quantification of greenhouse gas emissions. This detailed modelling study will also enable developing nitrous oxide mitigation strategies.

Another project is extending the BSM to include GHG emissions in order to evaluate the GHG emissions of a WWTP under different control or operational strategies. By using dynamic models that are capable of predicting the GHG emissions, operational conditions can be identified that lead to higher emissions. For example, lowering the oxygen set points would lead to less aeration and therefore

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less electricity use. This lower electricity usage results in lower indirect GHG emissions. However, the lower oxygen set point could also lead to higher N2O emissions, undoing the lower indirect emissions of the electricity use (Kampscheur et al., 2009). Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the responsible pathways and models that are accurately predicting the N2O emissions. Therefore, firstly different models are tested and their performance is compared (Snip et al., 2014). Secondly, these models will be compared with available data in order to assess which model is more accurate for the situation in which the data is gathered.

Modelling of micropollutants

There is also growing awareness about the importance of treating emerging pollutants that typically occur in the influent of a WWTP, namely micropollutants. With the usage of household chemicals, illicit drugs and pharmaceuticals, trace levels of these compounds can indeed be found in the wastewater. As WWTPs are not typically sufficiently equipped to remove these compounds, a model can help with the prediction of the fate of the micropollutants. Project 1.A has worked on extending the Benchmark Simulation Model to be able to predict the fate of micropollutants in a plant-wide context. This is useful as there are different investigations that demonstrate that a change in operating conditions such as sludge retention time (Clara et al., 2005) can effectively improve the elimination of micropollutants from the liquid phase by sorption, transformation or biodegradation (Joss et al., 2008). Therefore, comparison of operational/control strategies in WWTPs is a promising tool to test the relative removal effectiveness of these compounds. The Benchmark Simulation Model (BSM) tools have been developed with the aim of having a platform to objectively compare different control strategies of WWTPs and are therefore the appropriate platform to be extended with the occurrence, transport and fate of micropollutants.

As micropollutants encompass a wide range of chemicals, each with different characteristics, pharmaceuticals are selected as the micropollutant to model. As mentioned, not only the fate of pharmaceuticals in the WWTP is modelled, also the occurrence and transport of the pharmaceuticals

are taken into account. When modelling a WWTP and evaluating its performance, it is important to consider the dynamics of the operation. The influent of a WWTP is highly dynamic and these dynamics will propagate through the entire plant (Butler et al., 1995). The same applies to the dynamics of the pharmaceuticals, which will be reflected in the effluent as well (Nelson et al., 2011). These peaks in the effluent can result in acute toxicity if the levels are high enough. In addition, the micropollutant concentrations influence the rate of the removal processes in the activated sludge units (Plósz et al., 2010). In addition, in-sewer transformations of pharmaceuticals have been reported (Jelic et al., 2015), which would be of importance when back calculating consumption rates (Zuccato et al., 2008). The BSM framework has been upgraded with the ASM-X framework (Plósz et al., 2012) and different operational strategies have been tested (Snip et al., 2014). The comparison of the operational strategies showed that improved removal for one compound could lead to a decrease in the removal of another due to different characteristics. Therefore, tertairy treatment would be beneficial when wanted to remove the pharmaceuticals from the wastewater before discharging it in the aquatic environment.

Qualitative modelling

As N2O production within the wastewater treatment process can be related to different biochemical pathways such as heterotrophic denitrification, AOB denitrification and from PAOs. It is therefore difficult for the models to properly describe multiple and different data sets. For example they typically represent only one of the two basic metabolic pathways for N2O production by ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB). As researchers continue to make strides in reaching a consensus on N2O dominant pathways, model validation, and implementing and calibrating multiple or unified N2O pathway models, project 1.D of SANITAS will complement the progression of the mechanistic description and understanding of N2O production with a knowledge-based risk assessment modelling approach. This approach will also provide a qualitative, practical means of benchmarking WWTP and control strategies.

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Information and data sharing

First of all, practical application of existing knowledge and tools for modelling, simulation (project 1.A) and control of UWS (project 2.A) was highlighted. Additionally, project 1.A will incorporate any new knowledge regarding modelling of emerging challenges i.e. GHG (project 1.B), micropollutants (project 1.C), optimisation of energy use/production in advanced technologies such as anaerobic processes (1.E), granular sludge reactors (project 1.F), membrane based systems (project 1.G) and qualitative modelling of UWS operational problems of biological nature with lack of mechanistic understanding (project 1.D). Besides, process control tools will be extended to enhance control of sewer detrimental emissions (project 2.F), control of technologies for water reuse (project 2.D for nutrient removal and 1.G for microbial indicators), for minimising the impact on receiving media (project 2.E) and for the real time based consenting at catchment level, improving water quality whilst limiting costs and carbon footprint (i.e. moving away from fixed, end-of-pipe consents or permits to discharge and consider other more flexible, spatio-temporally responsive options, project 2.C). The extended Benchmark system (2.B) is a common software platform for development and objective evaluation of control strategies. First, it will incorporate existing but also new models collected within project 1.A and, later on, relevant outcomes from project 2.A, 2.C and 2.E will be transferred to 2.B. Finally, work within project 3.A, gathering outcomes from 1.A and all WP2 projects, will enable to understand and improve the UWS by means of models, benchmarks or DSS. These tools are a means for the sustainable design and integrated control of the UWS. They will enable multi-criteria analysis for an estimation of the environmental, economical (including energy) and policy impact. Scenario analysis will be carried out to investigate the impact of/on climate regarding design configurations and management strategies of UWS.


Environmental monitoring, data, indicators and assessments, as well as formal scientific research are fundamental to the implementation of the Union’s environment legislation. This knowledge and evidence base needs to be constantly improved and strengthened so that the development and implementation of policy in the Union continues to draw on a sound understanding of the state of the environment and possible response actions with their consequences.

SANITAS projects are filling data and knowledge gaps by investigating the biodegradation and removal mechanisms of target micropollutants and the formation of GHGs in sewer systems and WWTPs. Modelling tools are also being developed and enhanced within SANITAS, with the expansion of benchmark simulation models to include additional pollutants and micropollutants as well as the formation of GHGs and extensions to include the sewer system and the receiving medium. A qualitative model to assess the risk of N2O formation in WWTPs has also been developed. These models help researchers and UWS decision makers and actuators to i) design and optimize complex processes; ii) acquire knowledge of intricate interactions; and iii) predict system behaviour, in order to ensure the development and best implementation of EU environment policy.

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Better accounting for environmental externalities within the urban water system is a vital step to achieve the full cost recovery though the full implementation of the polluters pays principle or payment for ecosystem services schemes. Incorporating the concept of ecosystem services into the urban water system management might contribute to the attainment of a better accounting for the external costs and benefits in the decision’s evaluation. Integrated urban wastewater modelling is also a powerful decision-support tool to assist on the efficient financial resource allocation (see chapter 4). Further development on these research fields can prove vital to advance towards a better implementation of payments for ecosystem services schemes and, thereby, incentivising private sector involvement and the sustainable management of EU natural capital.

Achieving full cost recovery

Article Nine of the WFD stipulates that “Member States shall take account of the principle of recovery of the costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs, …, and in accordance in particular with the polluter pays principle”. Full cost recovery for water services is an important component of waterbodies protection, since it can help to generate revenue that can be invested in expanding and rehabilitating water service systems (OECD, 2003).

Water pricing is the monetization of water abstraction, use or pollution of water. By implementing pricing mechanisms for different types of water services, cost recovery can be (partially) achieved. However, so far it has been very difficult to achieve full cost recovery through tariffs in the water sector (OECD, 2010). Assessing the costs that should be recovered from water users is not a straightforward task. One of the major difficulties faced is that the costs to be considered should be only the efficient ones, i.e. “those that would be incurred by a service supplier behaving efficiently and paying all inputs at their own marginal cost” (EEA, 2013). Another remarkable difficulty is that the resource and environmental costs call for complex and site-specific analyses. Therefore, achieving cost recovery in the urban water systems sectors will require moving forward on issues of efficient resource allocation and resource and environmental accounting, among others. These topics have been approached within SANITAS.

Efficient resource allocation

In the context of financial and economic crisis in Europe, efficient financial resource allocation for the urban water systems management is a must. This context offers the opportunities to move rapidly towards a more resource-efficient, safe and sustainable urban water systems management.

A system-wide analysis of wastewater infrastructure could prove a good strategy to achieve these objectives. For instance, it can be a valuable tool in identifying and ranking ageing infrastructure that has to be updated. With limited financial resources, an integrated analysis can identify those treatment plants that will provide best value for money in terms of improving the water bodies quality. A good example of efficient resource allocation is the Kallisto project (see box 6.1 below). Using modelling can help to identify where to invest and what is the best way to get the most out of their investment. In this way, it is possible to achieve improved water quality with a significantly less cost than a traditional approach of just expanding their assets.

CHAPTER 6Priority objective 6: To secure investment for environment and climate policy and address environmental externalities

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6.1

The Kallisto project

The Kallisto project had the objective of finding cost effective sets of measures to comply with the WFD in the case of the river De Dommel. The project reasons from the both severe and long-term impact of the UWS on the water and ecological quality of the river that are studied with an integral monitoring campaign in the wastewater system (WWTP and sewers) and river. By applying impact based real time control, the project aims at reducing supplementary investments in infrastructure while meeting the environmental objectives. Moreover, uncertainty is explicitly taken into account in the optimization and decision-making process (Weijers et al., 2012).

Chapter 4 has presented how SANITAS project is investigating ways to optimize the wastewater system operation, e.g., through improving the system’s design for energy efficiency, or the optimisation of operational plans in traditional activated sludge treatment process, granular activated sludge system or membrane systems.

Environmental externalities and pricing (Polluters Pay Principle)

According to the WFD (article 9), member states should achieve full cost recovery of water services in accordance in particular with the polluter pays principle. The Polluters Pay Principle (PPP) makes economic actors aware of the full cost, including environmental externalities, of their decisions by making them pay for the cost of avoiding, abating or cleaning up pollution. This principle should be fully implemented in the Union’s urban water systems to recover the full costs of water services. In the context of urban water systems, environmental externalities can consist of positive externalities (for example, groundwater recharge

from irrigation or water reuse) and negative externalities (for example, the release of pollutants in a receiving water body) (OECD, 2010).

During recent years, there has been an exponential increase in the interest by the research community to incorporate the concept of ecosystem services in the environmental management research field. The reason is that it might contribute to the attainment of a better accounting of the ecological and socio-economic trade- offs involved in management and planning decisions. Also, it can encourage institutions to adopt approaches that maximise the welfare of society and support the maintenance of the ecosystems’ integrity.

Incorporating the concept of ecosystem services into urban water systems management might contribute to the achievement of the objectives established by the Water Framework Directive, of full cost recovery. While conducting the economic assessment (cost-effectiveness) of the actions within the river basin management plans, or formulating water-pricing policies that would provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently (PPP), it is important to estimate the total (environmental and resource) costs and benefits of the impact in the status of the water bodies produced by these uses. Incorporating the concept of ecosystem services within the urban water systems, that is, the system that includes all the elements considered water services by the Water Framework Directive will definitely ensure a more efficient management of water resources and ecosystems.

Within the SANITAS research project 2.E, one of its objectives was to create a framework to integrate the concept of Ecosystem Services (ES) into Urban Water System (UWS) decision-making. This conceptual framework guides decision makers in UWS management through the definition of evaluation goals, spatio-temporal boundaries of the decision and the suitable decision support-tool; identification of the involved elements, stakeholders and ES to be considered; modelling the impact of the decision on the quality attributes of the water body; the provision (or depletion) of ES, and finally valuing its benefits and costs.

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Payments for ecosystem services (PES) – valuation of environmental goods

Both public and private water sector have focused their attention on the market opportunities attached to the management of ecosystem services, for instance, through the implementation of payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. Payment for ecosystem services is a market-based mechanism, similar to subsidies and taxes, to encourage the conservation of valuable ecosystems. These are payments to owners of an ecosystem that provides the service/s who have agreed to take certain actions to manage their ecosystems to provide an ecological service/s. The main purpose of PES is offering economic incentives to foster more efficient and sustainable use of ecosystem services. One important step is to identify and quantify as much as possible the ecosystem services provided. The valuation of the ES provided following the implementation of the PES scheme helps to demonstrate that it is worth to maintain or enhance ecosystem services from a societal point of view. Again, the SANITAS objective of improving

the ecosystem services accounting by developing a systematic framework can prove valuable to further implement this mechanism and create incentives for better management.


The Water Framework Directive seeks to achieve the full cost recovery of the water services in accordance with the PPP. To contribute to this purpose, SANITAS is developing modelling techniques to optimize, in economic terms, the operational performance of the wastewater systems. Moreover, SANITAS is supporting research aimed at improved accounting of resource and environmental costs and benefits (externalities), contributing to the efficient use of water resources and the pricing of full cost of water services, as well as the development of new approaches to incentivise protection of natural capital (i.e. PES).

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Driven by the increasingly stringent environmental quality policy requirements, significant progress has been achieved in urban wastewater treatment. According to the 7th implementation report on Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, 94% of wastewater generated within the EU is collected by sewer systems, and 82% of the wastewater subject to secondary treatment and 77% to tertiary treatment meet the Directive requirements. Yet to improve environmental sustainability and economic efficiency, more efforts are in need, especially in the fields of resource recovery and integrated water management. To achieve this, it is essential to effectively integrate environmental and climate-related considerations into other policies, and deliver environmental, economic and social benefits by more coherent policy approaches.

Integrated resource recovery management

Global trends such as population and economic growth, urbanisation and migration have increased the demand for water, energy and food. Resource reuse is a sustainable proactive risk management solution.

Integrated nutrients and biogas management

Anaerobic digestion is an environmental sustainable technology in providing biogas as renewable energy and digestate which could be excellent fertiliser and soil improver. However, the biogas price is relatively higher than other renewable energies (e.g. wind, solar, hydro, geothermal), and the yield of biogas from urban wastewater systems is still low despite its potential. Thus competitive market for recovered resources should be established in order to push resource recovery initiatives. Innovative technologies to improve the biogas production efficiency are in demand. Financial policy, such as subsidies may be necessary in some cases.

Integrated wastewater reuse management

Though wastewater reuse has been widely practiced in some regions with limited rainfall and water resource (e.g. Israel, Cyprus), it is in general underdeveloped and under-regulated in Europe compared to other water stressed regions (e.g. Australia, Japan, California):

• Wastewater reuse is raised in UWWTD and WFD but not addressed further, thus coherent regulations are needed at the European level;

• Comprehensive water treatment and reuse standards need to be developed tailored for specific situations in Europe; and

• Directions and financial tools need to be employed by Member States to encourage the demand for reused water.

Addressing trade-offs

The integration of Union and member state environmental legislation must be improved, particularly in the water, low-carbon and energy agendas. EU policies directed at addressing different environmental goals, for example improved air quality, improved water quality, biodiversity and reduced GHG emissions, are not always compatible. Taking into account general societal concerns, such as provision and affordability of services or security of energy supply can only make the compatibility challenge even more complicated for policy makers. The regulatory framework of the Union should be coherent and consistent across the board, ensuring a good balance among the Union’s social, economic, environmental and political objectives. The balance between the costs related to environmental damage and the costs of abatement and treatment should be investigated to ensure a sustainable management. Potential trade-offs between different types of pollution should also be investigated (for example improving water treatment using more energy and thus increasing GHG emissions) in order to maximise synergies and avoid unintended negative effects on the environment. These potential trade-offs should then be clearly communicated to decision makers, utilities, operators and the public.

CHAPTER 7Priority objective 7: To improve environmental integration and policy coherence

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Tools for integrated resource management

Local and regional authorities, who are responsible for the use of land and marine areas, play an important role in assessing environmental impacts and protect and manage the environment in an integrated way. A range of tools and methods can be applied to study the trade-offs between different types of environmental impacts and objectives in general. For one, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) can be employed to study the impacts of a product, service or process from cradle-to-grave across different categories of environmental damage. This allows to estimate environmental impacts across the board, and thus compares between different technologies, for example, a technology improving water quality (less eutrophication) but using more chemicals (more human toxicity). Multi-criteria analyses also allow for the investigation of trade-offs between various objectives by evaluating competing alternatives

in cases where a DM needs to take several types of objectives (economic, environmental, social, technical, legal) into account. Finally, DSSs can integrate economic, environmental, social and technical indicators to assess trade-offs and overall coherence of a decision. The outputs can then be easily communicated to the public, policy makers and actuators.


Though significant achievement has been made in establishing coherence and holistic regulatory framework (e.g. WFD), more efforts are needed to set clear and robust linkages between different policies so as to promote and make full use of innovation of research and the market.

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The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013, under REA agreement 289193. This publication reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

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SANITASSustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Programme Co-ordinator Dr. Joaquim Comas i Matas, UNIVERSITAT DE GIRONA

E: [email protected]

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