Abstract
This study reports an up-to-date summary of the principal barriers still limiting reclaimed water use for agriculture in Italy, and particularly in Sicily. Moreover, it provides a geographic informative system (GIS)-based procedure for evaluating the potential treated wastewater (TW) reuse in the Sicilian region as a decision support system for its management. The survey, based on possible economic, morphologic, and design solutions, evidenced a feasible integration of several wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with irrigation areas, allowing the water availability enhancement. Overall, the potential volume of TW by WWTPs (connected to irrigation districts) is 163 × 106 m3 year−1, while the water deficit is 66 × 106 m3 year−1. The feasibility of TW reuse in Sicily was also analysed at the light of the World Health Organization microbial risk assessment. Escherichia coli (E. coli) analyses mostly accomplished these guidelines while conflicting with the restrictive Italian standards. Despite several limiting factors (restrictive legislations, high distance and unfavourable slope between WWTPs and irrigable areas, high monitoring and distribution costs) still hamper the exploitation of reclaimed water use in Sicilian agriculture, some solutions were identified to implement this practice.
Highlights
Worldwide, arid and semiarid areas have increasingly experienced water scarcity
geographic informative system (GIS) Results on Wastewater Reuse In Sicily, a large amount of wastewater is treated in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of small–medium size (i.e., 244 WWTPs are below 1 × 104 P.E. and 95 under 1 × 105 P.E.)
The analysis revealed a potential volume of treated wastewater (TW) coming from plants connected with irrigation The analysis revealed a potential volume of TW coming from plants connected with irrigation districts of 163 × 1066m33, and a deficit of water resources of 65.8 × 106 m districts of 163 × 10 m, and a deficit of water resources of 65.8 × 106 m3
Summary
Arid and semiarid areas have increasingly experienced water scarcity. Such regions mostly use water for agriculture and crop irrigation (up to 70% of total water extracted), relying in particular on groundwater and surface water sources [1]. The same authors highlighted the great potential of TW for irrigation of agricultural fields close to urban centres, providing a considerable input of required nutrients for plants and reducing their net discharge on sensitive surface waters. As mentioned by [2], and discussed in other studies [3,4], the suitability of reclaimed water for specific applications depends on its quality and usage requirements. In irrigation practices water quality controls should mainly
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