RT Journal Article
T1 Environmental synergies in decentralized wastewater treatment at a hotel resort
A1 Estévez Rivadulla, Sofía
A1 Moreira Vilar, María Teresa
A1 Feijoo Costa, Gumersindo
K1 Decentralized wastewater treatment systems
K1 Life cycle assessment (LCA)
K1 Fertigation
K1 Water reclamation
AB Climate change and water scarcity are clearly related environmental problems, making them global environmental issues. Accordingly, the water cycle management deserves a revision in its approach, integrating the concept of circular economy within an efficient and sustainable management of water resources and the design of wastewater facilities. In this sense, newly engineered decentralized facilities have emerged as a viable option for the treatment of segregated wastewater flows. The design has not only integrated the wastewater treatment function, but also resource recovery, such as water reclamation for agricultural and irrigation activities, fertigation, fertilization and energy sustainability. Based on these premises, the concept of decentralized wastewater management deserves the same degree of attention and development that has so far been reserved for conventional centralized management systems. Therefore, this paper proposes a progressive substitution of the business-as-usual scenario or centralized system by applying a small-scale wastewater management scheme performing a more efficient resource and water recovery in a medium-sized 4–5-star resort hotel. The spotlight was a membrane technology for the anaerobic digestion of the blackwater instead of the greywater treatment. A favorable environmental profile was found for the decentralized scenario under two circumstances: a large system boundary including the beneficial environmental impacts of the products and, based on the results obtained from a sensitivity analysis, an energy demand for the operation of the AnMBR lower than 2 kWh·m−3. The global warming potential results (around 9%) were even for such high demand and much larger benefits were obtained for other impact categories (94% for SOD and 98% for LU). Nevertheless, the operation (gate-to-gate approach) of these on-site recovery facilities is far from being optimized and further research should follow to decrease the 39.8% difference in the global warming potential between decentralized and centralized systems
PB Elsevier
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29082
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29082
LA eng
NO Journal of Environmental Management 317 (2022) 115392
NO The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Run4Life project, which receives funds from the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (GA no 730285-1). They would also thank to Aqualia for all the technical support provided. SE, MTM and GF belong to CRETUS and the Galician Competitive Research Group (GRC ED431C 2017/29). S. Estévez would also like to express her gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for financial support (Grant reference PRE2020-092074).
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026