filter by:
Articles
International Journal of Environmental Research (17356865)(2)
Groundwater quality management is challenging due to the fate and transport of multiple pollutants in the porous media, extensive polluters, and late aquifer responses to pollution reduction practices. Water quality trading (WQT) is an economically incentive-based policy for waste load allocation (WLA) in water resources. This study evaluates the effectiveness of 12 WLA scenarios on reducing groundwater nitrate and chloride, simultaneously using MODFLOW and MT3DMs. Here, the theoretical efficiencies of multi-pollutant WQT are also testified out of these scenarios by developing environmental, economic and practical conditions. For these purposes, Varamin plain, south-eastern Tehran, Iran, was chosen as the study area where both point and non-point pollution sources were considered in WQT. At first, an allowable quality limit (AQL) for the groundwater was set for pollutants regarding groundwater impairment and simulation outcomes. The AQL violations of WLAs were then calculated in addition to their marginal abatement costs and penalties. Here, nitrate abatement ranges between 3.3–18.3%, while chloride abatement ranges between 4.5–23.6%. Our findings show that, 5 WLA scenarios could pass the conditions of not violating any AQLs, and gaining remarkable benefits (> 25%) for all market attendants. Potential WQT strategies are finally prioritised regarding their viability and marginal costs. According to these conditions, trading discharge permits between wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with 50% nitrate removal (sellers) and farmers (buyers) are recommended as the optimal WQT alternative, which imposes no penalties or land-use changes. Here, the overall benefits of sellers and buyers exceed 47% and 81%, respectively, in comparison with not attending any WLA scenario. Highlights Varamin aquifer quality is analyzed in 12 WLA scenarios with point and non-point sources. Wastewater treatment and altering crop pattern can reduce pollutants in 10 years. Multi-pollutant WQT is theoretically feasible and has economic benefits. Four conditions are emphasized in order for the feasibility study of potential WQT. A practical WLA with low benefits has privilege over a highly beneficial WLA without practicability © University of Tehran 2024.
Water Science and Technology (2731223)(7)pp. 1741-1756
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have positive and negative impacts on the environment. Therefore, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) can provide a more holistic framework for performance evaluation than the conventional approach. This study added water footprint (WF) to LCIA and defined ϕ index for accounting for the damage ratio of carbon footprint (CF) to WF. The application of these innovations was verified by comparing the performance of 26 WWTPs. These facilities are located in four different climates in Iran, serve between 1,900 and 980,000 people, and have treatment units like activated sludge, aerated lagoon, and stabilization pond. Here, grey water footprint (GWF) calculated the ecological impacts through typical pollutants. Blue water footprint (BWF) included the productive impacts of wastewater reuse, and CF estimated CO2 emissions from WWTPs. Results showed that GWF was the leading factor. ϕ was 4–7.5% and the average WF of WWTPs was 0.6 m3/ca, which reduced 84%, to 0.1 m3/ca, through wastewater reuse. Here, wastewater treatment and reuse in larger WWTPs, particularly with activated sludge had lower cumulative impacts. Since this method takes more items than the conventional approach, it is recommended for integrated evaluation of WWTPs, mainly in areas where the water–energy nexus is a paradigm for sustainable development. © 2024 IWA Publishing. All rights reserved.
Jamshidi, S.,
Ansorge L.,
David Vaca-Jiménez S.,
Gerbens-Leenes W.,
Aldaya M.M.,
Arastou, K.,
Wöhler L. Ecological Indicators (1470160X)
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology (17351472)(14)pp. 8885-8900
Fish ponds are reliable food supply in local scale. However, they have adverse environmental impacts due to discharging pollution to the surface waters. To quantify the sustainability of this industry with the perspective of environment-food nexus, the-state-of-the-art index of food environmental footprint (FEF) is used and calculated for trout ponds (TPs). For this purpose, an integrated method is developed for accounting the environmental impacts of TPs by including grey water footprint (GWF) in Recipe, a tool for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). GWF stands for the embedded water consumption and LCIA combines the potential health and ecological impacts. Here, water quality data of multiple pollutants, BOD, COD, TSS, NO2, NO3, NH4, TN, PO4, DO and Cu+2, in the influent and effluent of Iranian TPs was obtained by field experiments and discussed with data from 9 countries. Results showed that TSS and NH4 are critical pollutants and the average GWF is about 16 m3/kg. Moreover, human health impacts are relatively greater than ecological damages. Nevertheless, FEF is calculated 0.17 and verifies TP sustainability (< 1). Based on environment-food nexus perspective; it means that the positive value of food production dominates TPs’ negative environmental damages. In addition, this study reviewed the efficiency of constructed wetlands for low-strength wastewater treatment. Due to its potential on TSS and NH4 removal, this system can reduce the GWF and added environmental damages of TPs 85% and 58%, respectively. Consequently, FEF decreases to 0.023 showing the very sustainability (< 0.1) of TPs by wastewater treatment. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.). © The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Iranian Society of Environmentalists (IRSEN) and Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University 2024.
2025 29th International Computer Conference, Computer Society of Iran, CSICC 2025pp. 113-166
Algal bloom and Eutrophication are well-known problems in surface waters, particularly lakes, wetlands, and estuaries. These problems are the consequences of unsustainable farming, urban development, and rural activities like grazing livestock or recreation. Any uncontrolled pollution discharge from these point or nonpoint emission sources introduces nitrogen and phosphorous compounds into water bodies. High concentrations of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP) accelerate Eutrophication and consequently endangers aquatic ecosystem with human inhabitants. This chapter introduces some integrated sustainable management strategies for the restoration of wetland and lakes from Eutrophication. Based on this purpose, the basin of Zrebar Lake located in western Iran was chosen as the studied area. According to the recent studies, this natural wetland encounters Eutrophication. Here, water quality, sediments, emission sources, and ecological specifications of Zrebar Lake are initially reviewed. It is concluded that agricultural activities, such as irrigation and land-uses changes upstream, are mainly responsible for TN and TP pollution loads. Therefore, with a local point of view, integrated farm and basin management (IBFM) strategies are recommended as a solution. However, their sustainability depends on the effectiveness of management practices, impacts on production yields, and the willingness of locals and farmers. The geographical, social, and economic conditions of this area limit implementing some management practices. Therefore, the application of basin simulation tools, like the SWAT model, is recommended as it is inevitable for accounting the effectiveness of management practices. This method can include land-use changes and provide a framework for evaluating the amount of pollution loads removal, changing production yields, and estimating regionally oriented water footprint (WF) of productions in different management practices. For example, 50% reduction of chemical fertilizers, animal manures, and water for irrigation in a decade may approximately reduce 85% of TN pollution loads and 25% of TP pollution loads discharged per one ton of product to the lake. However, this strategy can also reduce the net income of farmers cultivating apple, tobacco and tomato between 25% and 65%. It is also not clear whether these applications can improve ecosystem in this period. Therefore, this chapter implies that the modeling framework requires supplementary quantitative methods for detailed sustainability assessment. WF sustainability (WS) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) are two quantitative approaches introduced as auxiliary tools. Accordingly, the WFs of agricultural productions can be compared with annual available water in the study area. LCIA can also accumulate the impacts and show how environmental indicators would be improved by different policies in IBFM. © 2023 Scrivener Publishing LLC.
Aqua Water Infrastructure, Ecosystems and Society (27098028)(7)pp. 1309-1319
Groundwater is a dependable freshwater resource in arid and semi-arid areas where its quality management is essential. However, untreated wastewater is a risk to safe water supply from aquifers. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can reduce pollutants, but their impact on groundwater quality versus their operating costs requires case studies. This research uses the two modules of the groundwater modeling system (GMS) to simulate the Varamin Plain, south-eastern Tehran, Iran. The MODFLOW and MT3D were used for groundwater quantity and quality modeling, respectively. Through these modules, the effectiveness of two WWTPs (Pakdasht and Varamin) in six waste load allocation (WLA) scenarios was compared based on nitrate reduction in 3-year and 10-year periods. The construction and operating costs of each WLA scenario were also calculated. The best WLA is a scenario with the lowest marginal cost. Therefore, constructing Varamin WWTP with 25% nitrogen removal was the selected option. Here, the average nitrate concentration in the aquifer is reduced from 28.4 mg/L (+4.1) to less than 25 mg/L (+2.4) with an annual marginal cost of 8 M$.L/mg. It implies that constructing more WWTPs or tertiary units for nitrate removal is not recommended as they do not add significant nitrate abatement in groundwater regarding the related costs. © 2023 The Author.
Journal of Hydrology (221694)
Grey water footprint (GWF) is an indicator that converts the pollution loads to the equivalent freshwater volume in water footprint (WF) assessment. The conventional application of GWF is to account the embedded water required for the assimilation of pollution loads discharged by production processes. However, this research highlights a deficiency in GWF accounting and proposes an integrated methodology to reinforce GWF to consider the regional environmental concerns in the WF of agricultural productions. This methodology has three main consecutive steps. First, the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) is used for basin simulation. Second, the WFs of agricultural productions are assessed by the modeling outcomes and according to the conventional approach of GWF accounting. In the third step, an amendment is introduced in WF assessment for accounting the embedded freshwater required for environmental enhancement. This amendment develops multiple-pollutant GWF assessment and increases the WFs of agricultural productions in environmentally impaired basins. This approach is verified in Zrebar Lake basin where farmlands are the main non-point sources and the lake experiences eutrophication. Here, the average WFs of rain-fed and irrigated crops are increased 8.9% and 5.8%, respectively by the developed methodology. In addition, the average ratio of GWF to WF of crops grows from 1.3% to 7.6% and the water pollution level increases more than 5.3 times in basin for WF sustainability assessment. This enhancement in the quantification of GWF is mainly due to the fact that the majority of the GWF of crops in the study area is related to nitrogen pollution loads, while phosphorous reduction is more critical for eutrophication control. Thus, this approach enables the multiple-pollutant GWF to consider the impacts of both pollution loads and ecological impairment in the WF of products. This perspective can promote GWF as an environmental indicator and extend its application for decision-making. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
2025 29th International Computer Conference, Computer Society of Iran, CSICC 2025pp. 247-271
Grey water footprint (GWF) is typically introduced as the environmental fraction of water footprint (WF). This indicator estimates the equivalent volume of freshwater required for assimilating the pollutants discharged by the production process to meet specific water quality standards. The conventional definition of GWF and its methodology for calculation is relatively simple and is initially introduced in this chapter. This indicator is then compared according to the global and national data of crops. Based on these evaluations, it is reported that the average GWF hardly exceeds 15% of the total WF of crops globally. Nonetheless, GWF and its ratio to the WFs of products is highly variable in different nations or regions, among different crops and products, and even between the same products with different production processes such as the rain-fed and irrigated crops. Therefore, this chapter later focuses on the challenges of GWF assessment. Here, the shortcomings are highlighted in the definition of GWF which may introduce some misunderstandings, particularly for water allocation. For example, it is pointed out that the ratio of GWF to crop WF is mostly influenced by a set of agriculture-related factors instead of environmental issues. This point in addition to the low ratio of GWF to WF implies that this indicator might be neglected in comparison with the blue and green WFs of crops. Another shortcoming is GWF uncertainties. This chapter also discusses the four pillars of uncertainty, with their related challenges and possible impacts on GWF assessment. For example, the different methods of water quality regulation may result in different GWF for a product. According to all these gap analyses, this chapter reintroduces the developed methodology for considering environmental concerns in GWF accounting and reinforcing its ecological role. A hypothesized study is chosen with some environmental issues to show how GWF problems can be solved by the altered methodology. Afterwards, the results are compared by which a conceptual model is developed for illustrating the impacts of a new accounting approach on intensifying the multiple-pollutant GWF of products. Finally, some research roadmaps emphasizing GWF and possible future trends are notified and recommended. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
International Journal of Environmental Research (17356865)(6)pp. 641-652
Agriculture is the main source of diffuse nutrient pollution in surface waters. It requires best management practices (BMPs) for controlling the discharges of pollutants like total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP). In addition, these pollutants are accounted in the grey water footprint (GWF) of agricultural productions. This study proposes an integrated methodology with two steps for assessing the impacts of BMPs on the water footprints (WF) of agricultural productions. First, this approach uses the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) for basin modeling and calculating the required data for WF assessment. In the second step, the WFs of agricultural productions are quantified and compared in different BMP scenarios, including fertilizer and irrigation reduction (FIR) and the application of vegetated filter strips (VFS). The SWAT modeling shows that FIR and VFS are more effective on TN and TP reduction, respectively. It can estimate that the combination of BMPs has the potential of abating 60% of the TN and TP concentrations of lake in 8 years. However, the WFs of agricultural productions may not be significantly reduced by BMPs as the average GWF only constitutes 4.2% of WF in this basin. For instance, the combination of FIR and VFS can reduce the average WF of cereals from 44 to 41 m3/km2. Nevertheless, this practice is relatively more effective for irrigated crops. The WF of rain-fed crops remains constant on 37 m3/km2, while it is reduced 24% (from 91 to 69 m3/km2) for irrigated crops by BMPs. In addition, it is realized that FIR can adversely reduce the production yields up to 32%. All these findings verify that the proposed methodology can integrate BMP and WF assessments by SWAT modeling and is recommended for basins, where farmlands are the dominated land-use. © 2020, University of Tehran.
Ecological Indicators (1470160X)
Grey water footprint (GWF) is an indicator that represents the water quality issues embedded in producing a product in form of freshwater volume. This indicator converts the pollution loads to the equivalent volume of freshwater with respect to the assimilative capacity of the receiving water body. This study develops the method of accounting multiple-pollutant GWF with ecological perspective. For demonstrating the developed methodology, original samples were taken from trout farms in the Kabkian River, south-western Iran, and the pollution exports are calculated in first step. In the second step, river is modelled for determining the local-oriented water quality standards. Finally, total multiple-pollutant GWF is determined. Here, equations are developed for considering dissolved oxygen (DO) in accounting GWF due to the critical role of this parameter in aquaculture and fish production. In addition, a state-of-the-art coefficient is introduced to alter the formulation for including the environmental issues of receiving water body in accounting GWF. This can provide a framework for considering Eutrophication, saline intrusions, minimum environmental flow and DO deficit of river, in addition to the risks of micropollutants in water footprint assessments. Nevertheless, the results of case study show that GWF is nitrogen-related for trout farming. It equals 195 m3/ton but it may fluctuate depending on the local development strategies and their consequences on the environmental issues. Consequently, the proposed methodology can broaden the prospect of the application of GWF and enhance the role of environmental capacity in this indicator. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
TQM Journal (17542731)(6)pp. 1049-1063
Purpose: Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are evolving toward sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how innovation can develop these mission-based service industries to value-added manufacturing enterprises. Here, innovation is embedded in altering the understanding of stakeholders toward the objectives and managerial systems of these infrastructures. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses multidisciplinary principles in management, economics and engineering to assess the integration of innovation and quality management with different perspectives. It initially compares the conventional and innovative approach for operating WWTPs. Subsequently, it emphasizes the contribution of the tailor-made managerial system of wastewater treatment enterprises through prospective markets, customers’ preferences, probable competitions and shared values. Findings: The tailor-made managerial system for wastewater treatment can add economic values by manufacturing multiple demand products for local markets. Water, green energy, organic fertilizers and raw materials are the main products that can be simultaneously recovered according to the customers’ demand. The Kano model also verifies that the new managerial system has this potential to turn the conventional must-be treatment systems into delightful enterprises. It can provide different stakeholders with shared social and environmental values. Accordingly, locals and customers can be engaged in monitoring the quality of products to consider their feedback for decision making and upgrading. This indirectly defines shared values among operators and society to reinforce localization and ecosystem protection. Additionally, this research reveals that the market of the aforementioned strategic products is promising as a blue ocean for set sail due to the lack of competitors. Originality/value: This study introduces wastewater treatment as a promising enterprise for integrating innovation and quality management. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems (10286608)(4-Jan)pp. 223-240
Variations in quality or quantity of reservoir discharges and of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are typical sources of uncertainty in controlling and management of river water quality downstream. This study evaluates and discusses the impacts of these operation-based uncertainties on waste load allocation (WLA) policies, like water quality trading (WQT), by Monte-Carlo simulation. For this purpose, we chose the Sefidrud River in northern Iran and developed an economic-based WLA in this area through a simulation-optimisation approach. The river with 1150 reaches is simulated by coding in MATLAB and linked to a multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm in which the two objectives are minimisation of environmental violations and abatement costs. For uncertainty analysis through Monte-Carlo simulation, river flow and kinetic rates, dissolved oxygen (DO) at headwater, pollution loads of dischargers, and temperature are considered as primary variables. Results show that the success of WLA is mostly reliant on the DO concentration of headwater, occurrence of seasonal floods, and river aeration rate. The implications of the findings are also analysed for WQT. In particular, the above uncertainties are highlighted as possible threats for the success of discharge permit markets because polluters could be penalised or rewarded for uncertainties regardless of their pollution discharges. Consequently, effective WQT under uncertainty is likely to lead to a need for more monitoring to resolve potential disputes from uncertainties. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
