Nematodes as a factor for consideration in the wastewater treatment and water reuse process

Abstract

AbstractNematodes play an important role in wastewater treatment systems by contributing to removal the biochemical oxygen demand concentration or fecal bacteria. The nematodes removal can be used to evaluate the degree of efficiency of wastewater treatment systems. For water reuse, current regulations set the criteria for biological quality that pose a risk to public health (E. coli, intestinal nematodes eggs, Legionella spp., etc.), regardless the control of certain organisms, such as plant-parasitic nematodes, that can cause diseases in crops and great economic losses in the agricultural sector. This study considers the effectiveness of the removal of total nematodes as method of measuring the efficiency of wastewater treatment systems. Additionally, the presence of plant-parasitic nematodes will be studied in the frame of water reuse. Finally, the biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, and total suspended solids were analyzed in order to evaluate the performance of treatment systems. It wa...