Abstract
Airports are an essential infrastructure to facilitate aviation. The substantial growth of aviation has led to a significant increase in water usage by airports. Airports also generate large volumes of wastewater that may include contaminants. Hence, understanding sustainable water management practices is essential in the aviation industry. In this study, an exploratory research design was utilized in the examination of the sustainable water management strategies and systems at Kansai International Airport from 2002 to 2016. The qualitative data were examined using document analysis as part of a case study. The quantitative data were analyzed using regression analysis as part of a longitudinal study. The airport has been able to reduce the total water consumption, water consumption per passenger, and water consumption per aircraft movement, even with increased traffic in recent years. The airport sources water from the municipal authorities and reclaims water for non-potable water uses. The airport conducts regular water quality tests which measure the Chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, and total phosphates. The airport’s onsite wastewater processing centre processes all wastewaters, which discharges non-reclaimed water into Osaka Bay. With a decrease in water consumption, there has similarly been a decrease in the need to treat wastewater, while the reclaimed water ratio has increased over the period of the study.
Highlights
Airports are critical pieces of infrastructure of the complex global aviation system that supports the movement of passengers and air cargo
The objective of this paper is to analyze the sustainable water management systems at Kansai International Airport, as well as the sources and volumes of water consumed at the airport, the annual recycled water rates, and the methods used to mitigate the environmental impact of the wastewater produced from the operations undertaken at the airport
As the present study aims to explore KIX’s sustainable water management over the period 2002–2016, it utilized the second type of longitudinal study approach as it sought to determine what was happening with the airport’s sustainable water usage and systems [48]
Summary
Airports are critical pieces of infrastructure of the complex global aviation system that supports the movement of passengers and air cargo. Airports all around the world are increasingly focusing on sustainable water management as a key element of their environmental plans and strategies This is because airports consume substantial amounts of water to maintain both their infrastructure and operations [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Water consumed by airports can be broadly divided into the water consumed by the landside activities undertaken at the airport as well as the water consumed by the key stakeholders involved in the provision of the airport’s airside area activities (operations) Landside means those parts of an airport as well as the adjacent terrain and buildings or portions thereof that are not in the airside precinct. Many airports around the world have hotels located in the landside precinct These actors require and consume water for a variety of purposes. Water is used for landscaping and lawn and plant watering
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