Assessing Quality of Reclaimed Urban Wastewater from Algarrobo Municipality to Be Used for Irrigation

In the European Mediterranean area, the lack of available water resources had led to consider the reclaimed urban waters as an integral part of water resources. Reclaimed urban waters could mitigate water shortage, support agriculture sector and protect rivers and groundwater resources. This work is focused on the evaluation of reclaimed urban water (RW) from Algarrobo municipality, which is located in the Málaga province in the Mediterranean coast at South-East of Spain. Wastewater in the municipal waste water treatment plant, was treated by a membrane bioreactor (MBR) as a tertiary treatment. The main goal of this work was to determine the composition of RW to be compared with fresh local water (LW) from the Algarrobo River, in order to evaluate its suitability for irrigation. Electrical conductivity (EC), pH, sodium absorption ratio (SAR), and mineral content were weekly measured from September 2017 until June 2018. Assessment of RW quality was carried out considering the limit values for each parameter as stated by the current Spanish legislation RD 1620/2007 for reuse of reclaimed water and European Directive for water reuse (EU 91/271/EEC, Annex I). The MBR facility was also focused on preserving essential minerals for plant nutrition to use them for crop fertilization instead of commercial fertilizers. The average content of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium were, respectively, 72%, 65% and 46% of the amount needed for the Hoagland 1/4 strength solution that was used in this study for irrigation of tomato, avocado and mango crops. From this study it appears that it is possible using membrane technology, to treat urban wastewater in order to supply a good quality of water for irrigation. Water analysis has also proved MBR to be efficient for removal of microbiological pollutants, inorganic compounds, some trace elements and heavy metals. The assessment of RW shows that the evaluated parameters of water-quality are within the range of values stated by Spanish legislation and the current European Directive for secure use of reclaimed water for irrigation.

Factors influencing water quality indices in a typical urban river originated with reclaimed water

The water quality in a typical urban river segment originated with reclaimed water in Beijing was monitored for two years to investigate the evolution of water quality along the rivcr, and statistical analysis was applied to determine factors influencing water quality of such river recharged by reclaimed water. It was found that no significant change in pollutant concentrations （including COD, NH4＋-N, TN and TP） was observed during this time, and their average values were close to those of the original reclaimed water. However, turbidity and algal contents fluctuated temporally in the direction of river flow. Statistical analysis showed that turbidity was strongly positively correlated with algal contents for flow rate 〈 0.1 m.s-1. whereas it was strongly positively correlated with both algalcontents and TOC for flow rate 〉 0. 1m. s-1. It was observed that diatom was the absolute predominant phyla with Melosira as the major species. In terms of algal bloom control, the specific growth rate of algae was strongly correlated to temperature, and was influenced by flow rate as well. Compared with two other rivers originated with reclaimed water and one originated with natural water, the Shannon Wiener index in the objective river was the lowest, with values between 0.7 and 1.6, indicating a high risk for algal bloom. Statistics showed that Shannon Wiener index was strongly negatively correlated to nutrient salts and cations.