Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of the perception regarding reclaimed wastewater reuse in agriculture conducted in the European Union regions. The analysis is based upon a SWOT framework and applies a cluster analysis to reduce the dimension of the responses enabling an assessment of the different perceptions of water reuse. More than one hundred key actors identified among the regions participated in the evaluation of the relevance of aspects identified. The results indicate some groups of countries according to natural conditions (water scarcity) and the strategic role of agriculture as a key factor to determine agent’s perceptions and attitudes. The results indicate that the forthcoming EU regulation of water reuse should focus in the problems of the perceived high cost of reclaimed water for farmers and the sanitary risk perception for irrigated crops by consumers as the critical points for fostering the use of reclaimed water in agriculture and the need for regional implementation of the global regulatory framework.
Highlights
Arid regions of the world usually have a demand for water that exceeds available resources
Our proposal is innovative as we will use cluster analysis to get some insight into the survey since we have eight countries with different objective characteristics and socioeconomic conditions
We apply principal components analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the space of answers, the results show that the Kaiser Meyer-Olkin (KMO) is lower to 0.6, recommending the use of original data [32]
Summary
Arid regions of the world usually have a demand for water that exceeds available resources. Water reuse “is considered vital to alleviate the demand on existing but limited water supplies and is gaining impetus throughout the world” [8], as an alternative water resource to fight droughts and water scarcity [9]. This opinion should be taken into consideration as wastewater is part of the hydrological cycle and its use in a closed basin where resources are already overallocated (as it is frequent in many regions) may increase exploitation of resources [10]. The main governance instrument in the EU is the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) (WFD) [11]; the WFD has been successful slowing down the deterioration of water status and reducing (mainly point source) chemical pollution, regarding urban wastewater, 88% of EU wastewaters are subject to secondary treatment water reuse is still low in the EU [12,13]
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