Abstract
Energy shortage and climate change call for sustainable water and wastewater infrastructure capable of simultaneously recovering energy, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting public health. Although energy and greenhouse gas emissions of water and wastewater infrastructure are extensively studied, the human health impacts of innovative infrastructure designed under the principles of decentralization and resource recovery are not fully understood. In order to fill this knowledge gap, this study assesses and compares the health impacts of three representative systems by integrating life cycle and microbial risk assessment approaches. This study found that the decentralized system options, such as on-site septic tank and composting or urine diverting toilets, presented much lower life cycle cancer and noncancer impacts than the centralized system. The microbial risks of decentralized systems options were also lower than those of the centralized system. Moreover, life cycle cancer and noncancer impacts contributed to approximately 95% of total health impacts, while microbial risks were associated with the remaining 5%. Additionally, the variability and sensitivity assessment indicated that reducing energy use of wastewater treatment and water distribution is effective in mitigating total health damages of the centralized system, while reducing energy use of water treatment is effective in mitigating total health damages of the decentralized systems.
Highlights
Water and wastewater infrastructure is necessary and critical for providing the basic human needs of water and sanitation services
This study focused on the two exposure pathways of accidental ingestion of recreational water contaminated with discharge from a wastewater treatment plant in BAU or from septic tanks in CT-SS and UD-SS, and ingestion of household potable water contaminated due to cross-connection to sewage in BAU
Understanding the health impacts of water and wastewater systems is critical to aiding in the design and implementation of sustainable water and sanitation services
Summary
Water and wastewater infrastructure is necessary and critical for providing the basic human needs of water and sanitation services. While centralized water and wastewater infrastructure has been successfully applied over many decades to provide adequate water and sanitation services in industrialized urban areas, centralized water and wastewater infrastructure is energy intensive and ranks as a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) [1]. To conserve energy use and combat climate change, alternative infrastructure design, under the principles of decentralized and resource recovery, are emerging in industrialized urban areas [2]. Though they are being implemented globally, the health impacts of decentralized and resource recovery-based infrastructure are not fully understood [3,4]. In order to support sustainable development, it is critical to assess the health risks of the emerging decentralized and resource recovery-based infrastructure
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