Risk Governance in EU Wastewater Reuse Law

An assessment of microbiological quality criteria for reuse of treated wastewater in agricultural irrigation

Water resources constitute a social, agricultural and economic problem in most countries of the southern Mediterranean Basin. Alternative strategies have been developed such as the reuse of municipal wastewater for irrigation in agriculture. Despite numerous advantages for soil fertility and crop productivity, recycling wastewater in soils also has several ecotoxicological and sanitary problems. Few investigations have assessed the risk by evaluating the impact of wastewater irrigation on soil microbes. Here, we report for the first time the short- and long-term effects of treated municipal wastewater irrigation on the density and genetic structure of bacterial and fungal soil communities. Soils from agricultural sites in Tunisia that had been irrigated with wastewater for 4, 8, 16 and 26 years were characterised. Soil physicochemical and microbial characteristics were assessed by sampling at 0–20 and 20–40 cm depth at each site. Quantitative changes in bacterial and fungal communities were measured by indirect counts on synthetic culture media and qualitative modifications were evaluated by using molecular ecology methods: B- and F-ARISA for Bacterial and Fungal Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis, respectively. These methods allowed genotyping the structure of bacterial and fungal communities from soil DNA extracts. Our results revealed a significant increase in microbial densities related to the duration of irrigation with wastewater. In addition, wastewater irrigation led to changes in the genetic structure of bacterial and fungal communities, the magnitude and specificity of these changes being significantly correlated with the duration of such irrigation. These results show that wastewater management schemes have a major effect on indigenous microbial abundance and composition in soils that could be related to the recurrent inputs of organic compounds and mineral/metallic elements. In an agro-ecological context, irrigation with municipal wastewater represents an impacting practice that now needs to be evaluated more fully in terms of ecosystem services for sustainable agriculture.

Wastewater reuse for crop irrigation: Crop yield, soil and human health implications based on giardiasis epidemiology

A sustainable approach for reusing treated wastewater in agricultural irrigation in the West Bank – Palestine

The aim of this study was to investigate the potential environmental issues associated with the re-use of effluent mine waste water from the Eshidiya rock mine, South Jordan for agricultural production. Waste water can be used for irrigation of field crops if international water quality guidelines are followed. Therefore, the chemical composition of effluents from the phosphate mine was determined and the sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), soluble sodium percentage (SSP), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), and magnesium hazard were evaluated. These values and the concentrations of dissolved Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni and U agree with Jordanian standards and FAO guidelines for irrigation purposes. Plotting the value of conductivity (EC) and SAR on the US salinity diagram indicates that most of the samples are categorized as C4S1–C4S2. This water cannot be used for irrigation on any type of soil, as per US Salinity Laboratory (USSL) guidelines, without posing a sodicity hazard due to exchangeable sodium. Effluents from the Eshidiya Mine fall into the FAO “slight to moderate restriction on use” category for irrigation. Thus, before use, mine waste waters should be mixed with ground water having a low salt content. Further work is required to quantify the negative effects (slight to moderate salinization) versus the positive effects (phosphate addition) using effluents from phosphatic waste waters for irrigation of field crops.

Rather than regarding risk governance as a burden, science should embrace it as an opportunity to build public trust

Global freshwater scarcity is imposing the demand for using non-conventional water resources for irrigation and non-irrigation purposes. Direct reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation is a widespread practice in arid and semi-arid regions, because of water shortage and scarcity. Water scarcity and the need for ecological sustainability have led to the introduction of treated wastewater as an additional water resource in the national water resources' management plans of Mediterranean countries. The use of wastewater for irrigation is an important tool for water resources' supplement. However, the reuse of effluent in irrigation can have negative impacts on crop quality and soil conditions, as well as on public health and the environment. Furthermore, inappropriate management of agricultural irrigation with treated wastewater can also pose problems for plant production and the physical and chemical properties of soils. This paper presents some approaches to understand the impacts of reusing treated wastewater. It also presents a critical analysis of the treated wastewater's reuse for irrigation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), while shedding light on the water status in the OPT. The paper investigates the wastewater treatment and reuse for agricultural irrigation, especially in the lack of control of Palestinians on their own freshwater resources in the OPT.

Development of a qualitative approach to assessing risks associated with the use of treated wastewater in agricultural irrigation

Sustainability assessment of wastewater reuse alternatives using the evidential reasoning approach

Two of the main concerns for wastewater reuse in agricultural irrigation are environmental and human security. Different research studies and practices have been developed recently in order to quantify the risk of possible environmental contamination of surface and groundwater resources as well as the risk to public health from enteric viruses. Other, far from negligible, related issues are largely of a socio-economic and technical character. For example, the social acceptance, especially by farmers, of wastewater reclamation and reuse in agriculture is influenced by specific local cultural, religious and socio-economic conditions. Economic and technical factors should also be taken into consideration, such as the water and wastewater treatment costs, the cost of maintenance, the employment of rural labour, the structure of irrigation networks and crop patterns. In this paper, the concept of sustainability in wastewater reclamation and reuse is formulated by using a general risk analysis framework and by taking into account all the above factors. The paper suggests a methodology for sustainable wastewater reuse in agriculture by considering not only technical and economic factors, but also environmental and social risks. Alternative strategies based on different treatment and irrigation technologies are evaluated using the multicriteria decision analysis technique. The methodology is illustrated in a case study of wastewater reclamation and agricultural reuse in the city of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece.

The status of wastewater reuse practice in the Mediterranean basin: need for guidelines

Wastewater irrigation and environmental health: Implications for water governance and public policy

The objective of this paper is to assess seafarers’ safety and health management during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of one Small Island Developing State. This assessment is done using the International Risk Governance Council, Risk Governance Framework as a benchmark for good risk governance. Seafarers are important to the global economy but are often treated unfairly. The recent global pandemic put a spotlight on long-stranding safety and health concerns which were exacerbated during the period leading to what was called the crew change crisis. This paper uses a qualitative approach employing interviews and a focus group with key participants, to explore Jamaica’s response to the crisis, the effectiveness of this response and the lessons to be learnt. The findings showed that Jamaica’s response was reactive and there were tensions between protecting the country’s borders and assisting seafarers. The findings also showed that the effectiveness of Jamaica’s response hinged on protecting the vulnerability of the country’s supply chain rather than seafarers’ safety and health as an end in itself. The paper argues that Jamaica’s response might have been more proactive, providing a win-win outcome, if a systematic approach such as that offered by the Risk Governance Framework was adopted, particularly in the initial stages. The paper is significant as it suggests a policy direction that countries such as Jamaica can take in managing risks of a particular nature in a safety-critical occupation such as seafaring, where it is not normally applied.

There has been a growing need among governments and a wide variety of policymakers and managers at all levels for a comparative risk framework. Needed in particular is a framework that integrates the cumulative knowledge on the analytic domain of risk research with the policy and regulatory domain of risk management and with the democratic processes of informed citizen choices. The momentum of globalising processes has accelerated this need. The inevitable risks accompanying global processes rapidly expand in variety, scale, and in disrespect for national borders. Expanding daily are concerns about global terrorism, the expansion of nuclear weapons, the emergence and spread of new diseases, the potential threats of new technologies, such as nanotechnology, and others. The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) has responded to this need with its first White Paper, Risk Governance: Toward an Integrative Approach (IRGC 2005), principally authored by IRGC Scientific and Technology Council member Ortwin Renn. There is little doubt that this tome is a scholarly and practical landmark that markedly advances our understanding of risk as an analytic concept and as a management tool. The White Paper is hereafter referred to as the IRGC risk governance framework or IRGC framework.

Application of reverse osmosis for reuse of secondary treated urban wastewater in agricultural irrigation