Closing Water and Nutrient Cycles in Urban Wastewater Management: How to Make an Academic Software Available to General Practice

Johann S Schuur,Dorothee Spuhler

doi:10.1007/s43615-021-00073-6

Abstract

Appropriate sanitation is crucial to alleviate pressures on environmental and human health hazards. Conventional (sewered) sanitation systems are often not viable in rapidly developing urban areas, where over 70% of the world population is expected to live in 2050. Freshwater is polluted and valuable resources such as nutrients and organics are lost. At present, many alternative sanitation technologies and systems are being developed with the aim to alleviate these pressures through (1) independency from sewers, water, and energy, therefore better adapted to the needs of fast and uncontrolled developing urban areas; and (2) contribute to a circular economy through the recovery of nutrients, energy, and water for reuse. Unfortunately, these innovations hardly find their way into practice because there exists a lack of data and knowledge to systematically consider them in strategic planning processes. To this end, we have developed SANitaTIon system Alternative GeneratOr (SANTIAGO)—a software that provides a comprehensive list of potential technologies and system configurations and quantifies their local appropriateness as well as their resource recovery and loss potentials. The aim is to provide a manageable but diverse set of decision options together with information needed to rank the alternatives and to select the preferred one in a structured decision making process. To make this software useful for practice, an easily accessible interactive user interface is required that (1) facilitates data collection and input; and (2) the exploration and presentation of results. As a first step in creating this user interface, we develop a framework that summarizes (1) the requirements that arise from practical applications of SANTIAGO, and (2) a comprehensive user understanding on the basis of 21 interviews with international practitioners caught in five personas: capacity developers, engineering experts, planners, researchers, teachers and trainers. This framework aids the development of any academic software into a tool useful for practice and policy makers. Here specifically, it enables contribution to sustainable development goals 6 (clean water and sanitation), and 11 (sustainable cities and communities).

Highlights

The worlds’ population reached 7.7 billion people in 2019, is expected to increase to 9.7 billion in 2050, and virtually all of this growth is likely to be absorbed in urban areas [1]
This research showed that the practical application of SANTIAGO results in clear requirements
Local appropriateness and resource recovery potential strongly depend on technology interactions and has to be evaluated for entire systems

Summary

Introduction

The worlds’ population reached 7.7 billion people in 2019, is expected to increase to 9.7 billion in 2050, and virtually all of this growth is likely to be absorbed in urban areas [1]. In places where growth is uncontrolled and rapid (informal settlements, slums, and emerging small towns), it often leads to issues such as environmental degradation, severe public health hazards as well as pressures on valuable resources like water and nutrients [6]. These issues are exemplified by a lack of accessibility to safely managed sanitation, a human right available to only 45% of the global population in 2017 [7]. To achieve access for all to even basic sanitation services by 2030, a doubling of the current annual rate of progress is required [9]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion