HS5.12

Since a few years, the effects of global warming are becoming more visible, also in Belgium: long heat periods in springtime or in summer (2018-2019-2020), irregular rainfall, leading to peak water demand. At the same time, the aquifers are not restored in wintertime; the surface waters are less reliable as a raw water resource. Belgium will be one of the more water-stressed countries in 2040. The mission of the water company “De Watergroep” reflects the willingness to solve the water stress issue in the future. The problem is complex, but the solutions are multiple: instead of making tap water from surface water of groundwater, alternative sources for making tap water are used as well, such as rainwater or low-quality water like brackish river water or effluent from a wastewater plant. This kind of solution can be realised even in the short term, and the beneficial environmental effect is part of the global aim to reduce the CO₂ footprint. Today, industrial customers are not just looking for tap water for processing purposes; they expect public water companies to deliver a full-blown water service starting from an optimisation plan and a business case. Together with the client, the water company looks for other water sources to reduce costs, lower the CO2 footprint to avoid wastewater taxes and meet today’s socio-economic expectations in general.  To cover the industry’s water needs sustainably, De Watergroep offers several formats, but in most cases, the DBFO. The industry wants to eliminate the complex water processing themselves, leaving water specialists to focus on their own production processes. The next step is the field tests on a pilot scale to try out several treatment techniques and optimise them, for example, upgrading the effluent from a wastewater plant up to tap water or up to demineralised water for steam production and other uses. After that, the “water plant” is upscaled to “the real thing”. De Watergroep knows perfectly how to meet the needs of several sectors like the chemical industry, the potato industry, the milk industry, and even the micro-chips industry that uses massive volumes of 100% purified water. State of the art techniques are used, some of them being “not yet so common”: The plus value offered to the client is the specific water knowledge: everybody knows several techniques to clean or upgrade water to a certain quality, but dimensioning, tuning, running and managing these techniques, putting them together in the most efficient way, requests specialists’ work. Partnership from both industry and the public water company De Watergroep leads to innovative, holistic water solutions in Flanders today, saving water for future generations.

How to cite: Hammenecker, J.: Water circles: the secrets revealed drivers for the circular mindset in Belgium,  with examples in the industry, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13485, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13485, 2022.

Sustainable development goals (6.1 and 6.2) call for full coverage with safely managed drinking water and safely managed sanitation by 2030. Thus, the UN Sustainable development goals declare to provide water, sanitation and hygiene for all and to involve local water users and find most suitable local practices for water provision.

While the MDGs highly promoted access to piped water and flushed toilets as the safest distribution of water and sanitation services, the SDGs promote access to all water sources and sanitation facilities if a safe management can be assured.

The SDGs "Safely managed drinking water" indicator includes the three following conditions: accessible on-premises, available when needed and free from contamination, and “Safely managed sanitation” indicator includes an improved sanitation facility which is: not shared, excreta is safely disposed in situ or excreta is transported and treated off-site. Thus, both centralized and decentralized water supply and sanitation systems are considered safe if met the sustainability criterias.

Since the Soviet Union time most of the centralized water systems in towns and rural areas in Kazakhstan were built in a linear way with piped water in and no sewer pipes out or limited wastewater collection pipes with no treatment and direct discharge. This research attempts to assess centralized water supply and sanitation systems on a household and the system levels in rural/urban areas in Kazakhstan using six sustainability components: environmental, socio-cultural, institutional, economic, health and technological sustainability. The survey included the questionannire of the households, discussions with the responsible for water supply systems and observation of water and sanitation points. The survey was conducted in three settlements with the access to centralised and decentralized water supply systems in Nothern part of Kazakhstan and covered 82% of the households. More than 85% of households used water from private sources; water from centralized sources if used mainly for watering the garden and not for drinking purposes. No sewer system was provided in the settlements and the waste/grey water is the responsibility of the household itself. Every household had pit laterine outside, meeting basic technical requirements and partially lacking the environmental safety requirements.  

For this study, several sustainability limitations were recognised where the most prevalent component, which consequently affected other components, was the institutional sustainability in the region, namely lack of community-based water supply systems,  the local municipality organization and regulation and education on maintaining the WSS systems.

How to cite: Tussupova, K., Kaliyeva, A., and Persson, K. M.: Sustainability of Water Supply and Sanitation systems in Kazakhstan, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12268, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12268, 2022.

The Sustainable Development Goals established worldwide targets for access to drinking water and sanitation by all. The progress toward these goals, aided by international monitoring, has helped to reduce global disease burden and improve quality of life. Safe drinking water and sanitation are critical determinants of human health and well-being, and the international community has lately deemed their human rights. This research aims at assessing the access to drinking water and sanitation services at the individual home level in the rural villages of Nothern Kazakhstan that either used to have access to piped water systems or currently can enjoy the water from the centralized water systems. The questionnaire was conducted in 10 villages of Pavlodar region to identify the access to drinking water and sanitation services as well as perceived satisfaction with the water source, additionally water samples from existing water sources were analysed. The results show that every fourth household used water from the centralised system. At the same time, every household had a complaint about the water from the system, namely, every fourth has complained about the turbidity of the water, 30% of households were unhappy with the smell and the same amount of households found water very hard. As the raw water source for the centralised systems is underground water, the water quality analysis has shown that the pH fluctuates between 3.90 and 8.96 with an average value of 7.79, which indicates the different nature of the groundwater in the study area.

Half of the respondent households used water from private boreholes where more than half connected water to the house and enjoyed the tap water. Still, 8% of the households used water from an open-source - the Irtysh river. All the above-mentioned households have access to piped water while using the other alternative water sources. All the investigated rural settlements had only private houses and about 82% of the households had toilets outside. 2,3 % of the households had only toilets at home connected to the centralized sewer system and 15% of the households had toilets inside the house connected to septic tanks. This means that more than half of households are still inaccessible for full sanitation and hygiene. In Kazakhstan's rural communities with the access to centralized water systems the disparity in access to better drinking water and sanitation does exist. Monitoring within-country disparity in these metrics can help Kazakhstan achieve progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by identifying neglected regions and implementing strategies to reduce access disparities.

How to cite: Kurbanaliyev Mukanovich, R., Raikhan Rymbaevna, B., and Rumiya Maratovna, T.: Assessing centralized water supply systems in rural settlements of Kazakhstan, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13339, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13339, 2022.

Urban development and the increase of impervious surfaces have a broad impact on the hydrological cycle leading to increased peak flow and flooding, especially in downstream areas. Surface water detention ponds are among the most common measures to attenuate the peak flow and return it from development to pre-development conditions. The effect of these ponds on reducing a flood depends on the location and the dimensions. This paper presents a new framework for identifying the best strategies for using the detention ponds to flood control in urban drainage systems. The stormwater management model (SWMM) was applied for hydraulic and hydrological simulations of urban drainage systems. In addition, a multi-objective optimisation model was used to find the optimal location and size of detention ponds. The effect of physiographic and social factors on selecting ponds was analysed by simulating and examining the GIS environment. Based on the criteria reviewed in the previous steps, the best management solutions were prioritised by a multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) named Compromise Programming (CP). The methodology was then demonstrated on the real-world case study of the Karaj city basin in Iran. The results show that these detention ponds can improve current drainage performance and decrease flooding damage.

How to cite: Hosseinzadeh, A., Torabi Haghighi, A., Rossi, P. M., Behzadian, K., and Karami, M.: Optimal detention ponds in urban drainage systems, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-6860, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6860, 2022.

Water Quality Management (WQM) in the 21st century is a growing challenge because of the large number of chemicals used in our everyday lives and industry, which often make their way into our waters  outbreaks of waterborne infectious diseases are still a public health concern in developed countries. More than 50% of European surface water bodies are either in less than good ecological status or potentially in worse condition. These trends reflect the need to shift from basic responsiveness to a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach that involves communities to improve access to safe water and improve the quality of water bodies. In this research project, we will design a mobile app platform for a Smart Water Quality Monitoring/Warning System based on Remote Sensing (RS) images and available in situ data for City of Oulu as one of the leading smart cities in Europe. This platform will forecast Water Quality (WQ) parameters for open lakes that people often use for swimming and leisure activities. It works as an early warning system to notify people about WQ in advance. The following parts will constitute the proposed Smart Water Quality Monitoring/Warning System (SWQMS): 1) Data collection from Landsat and Sentinel-2, 2) Data processing and information extraction about WQ criteria, 3) Designing a user interface to notify WQ condition to the community before planning for activities  4) real-time updating based on the inhabitant feedback on appearence water condition (Color, Turbidity etc.).  Along with the processing steps, this project faces some challenges on 1) Finding the best algorithm for WQ measurement in Nordic regions, 2) Improving temporal frequency in mid-resolution satellites in the cloudy sky, 3) Identifying the best machine learning approach to monitor and predict WQ in remote sensing, 4) combining remote sensing and GIS technology to designing a web-based early warning platform.

Two open lakes in north of Oulu City have been considered: 1) Kuivasjärvi and 2) Pyykosjärvi. These lakes are located in a populated area and are widely used for swimming and fishing in summertime. Eutrophication problems significantly face lakes due to the low oxygen content of the water and the prolonged water circulation because of specific layouts and geometry. Besides, due to their specific locations at the heart of densely populated areas, their quality are important for inhabitants’ health and the City of Oulu. Two lakes are connected through a narrow stream, and the lower lake (kuivasjärvi) is mainly fed by upper lakes and drain water of the watershed. The outlet of kuivasjärvi discharges into the Bay of Bothnia.

Finally, this platform is going to help to have a safe leisure activities in open lakes and even coastal regions so it can be extended to all around the world. By this application, it is expected to significantly reduce the number of water related disease outbreakes which are caused by swimming in open lakes and coastal regions.

How to cite: Ahrari, A., Torabi Haghighi, A., Rossi, P., and Oussalah, M.: Designing a Satellite-Based Smart Health Water Related Platform for Lake’s Water Quality Monitoring in Nordic Cities, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2819, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2819, 2022.

Intensified urbanization and climate change alter natural water systems, resulting in urban flooding. To overcome this issue, urban development decisions should align with resiliency needs including stormwater management. Integrating stormwater management within urban planning helps us to design more sustainable alternative systems. Developing vacant or underused areas which leads to changes of imperviousness percentage, hence influences runoff volume, is a key action in urban development. We investigated the effect of car parking allocation on stormwater management in urban areas. In this analysis, several car parking allocation scenarios are considered for this analysis in three independent urban areas in Oulu, northern Finland. These areas are encountering some changes in land use and new construction based on their approved detailed plan. We used a calibrated Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) to simulate different redevelopment scenarios. In this study, impact of climate change is addressed by comparing a range of precipitation values. Based on the results a promising structure is provided that decreases flooded areas in the future. Results indicate, that we can conduct stormwater flood management more efficiently by changing regulations in urban planning in the context of car parking, which helps us construct more green infrastructure instead of grey ones; in addition, changes in people's mobility habits and behavior which is affected on urban structure indirectly contributes to stormwater control.

How to cite: Rossi, P. M., Hosseinzadeh, A., Torabi Haghighi, A., Jalali Shahrood, A., Outila, T., and Jutila, J.: Integrating urban development and stormwater management; Car parking allocation in north of Finland, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-9484, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9484, 2022.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) has been recognized as a promising microbial denitrification technique in recent years,duing to  the treatment of high-strength ammonium wastewater. Compared to typical nitrification and denitrification methods, the anammox process transforms ammonium  and nitrite to nitrogen gas , and saves up to 60% of energy on aeration, sludge disposal and organic carbon addition. Furthermore, the process reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25%, particularly in the production of nitrous oxide (N₂O). However, the anaerobic ammonia oxidation bacteria (AnAOB) are very sensitive and vulnerable to many inhibitors, especially antibiotics in wastewater. In this study, the feasibility of applying electric fields to mitigate inhibition of tetracycline (TC) on anammox process and improve system stability was evaluated. Three electric field intensities of 1, 3 and a variable intensity of 1-6 V (VEF) were used to optimize electric field intensity under gradually increasing addition of TC (0.5, 2 and 10 mg·L^-1). Results showed that the application of electric fields (3 V and VEF) could improve TC tolerance and keep relatively high-efficiency nitrogen removal performance, especially at TC ≥ 2 mg·L^-1. Furthermore, applying electric fields contributed to mitigate irreversible inhibition and improve the stability of community structure. Underlying mechanism analysis indicated that the main mechanism of applying electric fields to mitigate inhibition relies on sludge structure strengthening. This study explored a novel strategy to reduce the inhibition of antibiotics on microbial denitrification and broaden the application of anammox in industrial water treatment.

How to cite: Cheng, B.: Application of electric fields to mitigate inhibition on anammox consortia under long-term tetracycline stress, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-6291, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6291, 2022.

Kazakhstan is a country in transition experiencing a rapid urbanization process with the highest rate in Almaty, the former capital of the country and the largest metropolis in the whole region. Over the past ten years, the city area has doubled its size. Being a concentration of economic and political power, Almaty attracts people from rural areas and neighboring states. Uncontrolled migration of the population leads to disproportional development of the city with inequality between the center and the periphery of the city. Rapid economic development and city growth led to increased per-capita water use and overall water demand and put pressure on water infrastructure. Such the foothill areas of Almaty, the southern part of the Nauryzbay, Bostandyk, and Medeu districts are experiencing a shortage of water supply due to low productivity, deterioration, or absence of networks and facilities. The city is located at the foothills of the northern Tien Shan Mountains in the valley of 4 rivers: Big and Small Almatinka, Esentay, and Kargaly. Climate change led to severe changes in Central Asia at high altitudes, including two times higher than the global average temperature rise and rapid glacier retreat. Shrinking glaciers supply ample quantities of water in the form of increased glacial runoff, and reduced glacier volume will ultimately result in a decrease in both glacier-fed and total runoff. There is no reduction in streamflow in any catchment or season in the northern Tien Shan. Instead, there is a positive trend in surface water availability.  At the same time, climate change poses the risk of more prolonged recharge of reservoirs and aquifers and may cause exhaustion of this water source that currently provides 70% of water for the city. Therefore, envisioning a long-term sustainable development perspective for a city, water resource efficiency, and climate change adaptation should be addressed together. Thus, our study suggests for the short term to limit the use of strategic groundwater reserves and diversify the water supply sources with a bigger share of surface water to benefit from the melting glacials. If the water allocation from groundwater reservoirs will be reduced and the aquifers will be recharged the water deficit for the city may be postponed.

How to cite: Torabi Haghighi, A., Baubekova, A., and Xenarios, S.: Climate-justified strategies for sustainable urban water supply system: sources diversification in Almaty city, Kazakhstan, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12115, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12115, 2022.

Continually providing water services for increasing urban population while minimising the impacts of urbanisation on the environment is becoming challenging. The technological/engineering solutions alone are not sufficient. Interventions from other disciplines such as urban design, planning, and social science are needed in addition to engineering solutions to overcome the challenges. However, suboptimal integration of interdisciplinary interventions might lead to unintended and undesirable outcomes. There is a need to holistically evaluate the benefits (and potential drawbacks) of integrated interventions, which is missing from the literature. Urban water metabolism at multiple scales as an evaluation framework for testing and comparing interdisciplinary interventions has been introduced. Urban water metabolism is a conceptual model for describing water flows in and out of urban areas, which can be used to study the interactions between natural landscape, built-environment, and socio-technological systems. It is based on urban water mass balance principles accounting for all water flows including natural and anthropogenic flows. The quantitative capacity of the evaluation framework at the development scale (i.e. site-scale) and city-scale is shown in the Australian city of Brisbane using a set of water performance indicators (e.g. naturalness ratios). Six scenarios were developed representing a variety of demand management strategies (e.g. efficient appliances), on-site water servicing technologies (e.g. rainwater tanks), and architectural design interventions. The results show, depending on the interventions implemented, stormwater runoff spikes between 332 to 392%, evapotranspiration is reduced in the range of 41 to 83%, and infiltration shrinks to 34 to 71% of the flows in the natural landscape (i.e. natural hydrology). More than 36% of water demand can be met internally at the site (i.e. self-sufficiency) if smart irrigation systems are installed, the efficiency of appliances and water fixtures is increased, on-site storage for local harvest is introduced, and architectural design is optimised. The framework developed in our study is useful for evaluating interdisciplinary options quantitatively and systematically. Additionally, it has applications as a design tool to identify and test alternatives to achieve greener and more sustainable urban spaces.

How to cite: Moravej, M., Tussupova, K., and Persson, K. M.: Urban water metabolism of Brisbane city: a multi-scale interdisciplinary evaluation framework, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12670, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12670, 2022.

 The application of optimisation approaches to the spatial design of urban water systems can result in unequal distributions of infrastructure services among different communities unless spatial equity objectives are explicitly considered. Differences between urban communities can be exacerbated if the co-benefits of water infrastructure are not properly distributed over the urban catchment. This is especially important when designing sustainable urban drainage systems, which carry several co-benefits in addition to the attenuation of stormwater runoff,  such as the improvement of urban landscape and mental health of the residents. In this work, we propose a new multi-objective optimisation framework that takes into account both cost-effectiveness and socio-economic aspects of urban drainage infrastructure design. The proposed framework considers the minimisation of capital costs, average flood damages, and total suspended solids as design objectives, as well as the minimisation of inequalities in the spatial distribution of flood damages and green infrastructure benefits quantified via appropriate equity metrics. A population-based multi-objective optimisation method is linked to a hydrologic-hydraulic model to determine a set of Pareto-optimal design portfolios associated with different trade-offs between traditional drainage design objectives and social goals. The proposed multi-criteria design approach was applied to a synthetic case study where sustainable urban drainage systems are used to expand the drainage capacity of an existing pipe network. The results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology to the design of urban drainage systems and provide insights into the trade-offs between overall cost-effectiveness and social equity in urban infrastructure design decisions.

How to cite: Seyedashraf, O., Bottacin-Busolin, A., and Harou, J. J.: An integrated multi-criteria approach for urban drainage system design considering spatial equity, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3154, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3154, 2022.

Water resources are essential for every development activity, not only in terms of available quantity but also in terms of quality. Water scarcity, due to physical lack or pollution, has become one of the most pressing issues globally, a matter of human, economic and environmental insecurity. Wastewater, whose value had not been appreciated until recently, is increasingly recognised as a potential ‘new’ source of clean water for potable and non-potable uses, resulting in social, environmental and economic benefits. This presentation will discuss the potential of reclaimed water (also known as reused water) to become a significant source of safe water for drinking purposes and improved sanitation in support of the Sustainable Development Goals, with the example of California.

How to cite: Tortajada, C.: Water reuse and examples from the case of California, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13383, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13383, 2022.

The current study attempts to identify the role of the most widely used physical, economic and institutional parameters that may affect water tariffs and affordability across several cities in high and upper-middle income countries. Differential inferential statistical methods were employed to explore potential associations of the water consumption, variable and fixed costs, utility management, and minimum wage, with the economic affordability on household level. The findings indicate a loose association of the tariffs with the above indicators which may not lead to certain assumptions. Although the results may be uncertain and inconclusive, however, there have only few studies till now exploring and comparing water affordability of urban water systems in high and upper-middle income countries. The findings could trigger further research on the better comprehension of affordability and water tariffs by improving social inclusion of low-income households on urban water accessibility and usage.

How to cite: Xenarios, S., Buurman, J., and Araral, E.: Water Tariffs and Affordability in Urban Water Supply and Wastewater Systems, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13391, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13391, 2022.