Special Issue "Sanitation, Pollution Control and Water Management"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Maria João Rosa
E-Mail Website
Assistant Guest Editor
Water Quality and Treatment Laboratory, Urban Water Unit, Hydraulics and Environment Department, LNEC—National Civil Engineering Laboratory, Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: water quality, treatment, and reuse; advanced treatments; resource recovery; control of emerging pollutants; energy efficiency; asset management of urban water systems
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. José Saldanha Matos
E-Mail Website
Chief Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Georesources, CERIS, IST-University of Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: asset management; faecal sludge; sanitation; sewer processes; urban drainage and wastewater treatment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

While water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population, and over 2.4 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, a large number of cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and related hazards. Floods and other water-related disasters account for 70% of all deaths related to natural disasters, and more than 80% of wastewater resulting from human activities is discharged into receiving waters without any treatment.

Nevertheless, in a large part of the developing world dry sanitation prevails, mostly using traditional or improved latrines, but with poor hygienic conditions, which are one of the main causes of outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid fever, and other waterborne diseases. In urban areas, on-site dry sanitation generally requires a chain of faecal sludge services, including collection, storage, transport, and treatment in an existing Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) or in a dedicated Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP), as well as final disposal of the biosolids. These issues clearly demand further research and insights.

In the developed world, on the contrary, wastewater is usually collected and transported to WWTP, being some of the main challenges related with using techniques, technologies and methods in order to optimize the performance of the wastewater systems.

The study of water resources and water pollution control has a long tradition; still, relevant issues are constantly being put on the spotlight: the fate of microplastics and other emerging pollutants, the relevance of resources recovery, the effects of climate change, and the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals, being some of the examples.

This Special Issue aims to enlarge the present knowledge related to sanitation, pollution control, and water management. Innovative research on technologies and methodological approaches are welcomed. The discussion of case studies, as well as of experimental work, is encouraged.

Dr. José Saldanha Matos
Dr. Maria João Rosa
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • faecal sludge
  • pollution control
  • sanitation
  • wastewater drainage and treatment
  • water management
  • water resources and water reuse

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

Article
Modelling Faecal Sludge Dewatering Processes in Drying Beds Based on the Results from Tete, Mozambique
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 8981; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168981 - 11 Aug 2021
Viewed by 292
Abstract
Currently, in sub-Saharan African countries, 65 to 100% of the urban population is served by on-site sanitation systems, typically pit latrines and septic tanks. Faecal sludge dewatering in drying beds is one of the most commonly adopted low-cost treatment technologies in developing countries [...] Read more.
Currently, in sub-Saharan African countries, 65 to 100% of the urban population is served by on-site sanitation systems, typically pit latrines and septic tanks. Faecal sludge dewatering in drying beds is one of the most commonly adopted low-cost treatment technologies in developing countries due to favourable climate conditions in terms of temperature and radiation and because their operation and maintenance are simple. Nevertheless, research in tropical dry zones regarding these processes is scarce. In this paper, a mathematical model for faecal sludge dewatering in sludge drying beds (SDBs) focusing on gravity drainage and evaporation processes is presented and discussed. Experimental campaigns were carried out at a pilot site in Tete, Mozambique, to determine the model parameters. The results suggest that the model can be used to estimate, in similar situations, the dewatering process of different types of faecal sludge. The present research might be considered as a contribution to the design and operation of SDBs, supporting sludge management and allowing the estimation of drying times and optimal loading cycles, namely, the sludge thickness and final moisture content. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sanitation, Pollution Control and Water Management)
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Article
Impact of Alum Water Treatment Residues on the Methanogenic Activity in the Digestion of Primary Domestic Wastewater Sludge
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 8783; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168783 - 06 Aug 2021
Viewed by 344
Abstract
The effect of adding alum water treatment residues (WTR) on the methanogenic activity in the digestion of primary domestic wastewater sludge was evaluated through laboratory experiments in sedimentation columns, using total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations from 0.37 to 1.23 g/L. The addition of [...] Read more.
The effect of adding alum water treatment residues (WTR) on the methanogenic activity in the digestion of primary domestic wastewater sludge was evaluated through laboratory experiments in sedimentation columns, using total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations from 0.37 to 1.23 g/L. The addition of WTR to primary clarifiers can benefit its effluent water quality in terms of colour, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and TSS. However, the presence of WTR can negatively influence the production of methane gas during organic sludge digestion in primary clarifiers, for concentrations of TSS between 14.43 and 25.23 g/L and of VSS between 10.2 and 11.85 g/L. The activity of the Methanothrix sp., curved bacilli, methanococci, and Methanosarcina sp. decreases considerably after 16 days of anaerobic digestion, and methane production seems to only be associated with fluorescent methanogenic bacilli. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sanitation, Pollution Control and Water Management)
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Article
Multi-Criteria Framework for Selection of City-Wide Sanitation Solutions in Coastal Towns in Northern Angola
Sustainability 2021, 13(10), 5627; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105627 - 18 May 2021
Viewed by 333
Abstract
In this paper, an expedited multi-criteria decision analysis framework, capable of tackling several dimensions for the choice of sanitation services, at an early planning stage is presented. The approach combines geographic information systems aided analysis for onsite solutions, with a multi-criteria decision analysis [...] Read more.
In this paper, an expedited multi-criteria decision analysis framework, capable of tackling several dimensions for the choice of sanitation services, at an early planning stage is presented. The approach combines geographic information systems aided analysis for onsite solutions, with a multi-criteria decision analysis tool capable of suggesting and ranking several viable offsite treatment alternatives, according to the desired criteria. The framework was applied to four coastal cities in Northern Angola, one of the sub-Saharan countries of the west coast of Africa, thus obtaining an indication for city-wide solutions, as an aid to achieve the goal of ensuring full sanitation coverage in those four locations. It included possible onsite collection and storage interfaces, namely Ventilated Improved Pit latrines, fossa alterna, septic tanks or conventional sewer systems. The study also contributed to an informed decision regarding optimal offsite treatment facility type, namely based on dedicated or combined wastewater and faecal sludge treatment (co-treatment), as well as different options for locations and sanitation technologies. Alternatives were compared and ranked according to ten main criteria concerning social, economic, technological and environmental aspects. This work helped demonstrate the usefulness of decision-aiding tools in the multi-stakeholder and complex context of sanitation in a developing country. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sanitation, Pollution Control and Water Management)
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Article
Combined Pretreatment by Ultrasound and Struvite Precipitation of Raw Substrates: A Strategy to Overcome C/N Ratio Unbalance in Nitrogen-Rich Anaerobic Co-Digestion Systems
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2175; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042175 - 18 Feb 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 766
Abstract
The present study aimed to optimize the struvite chemical precipitation process in nitrogen-rich anaerobic co-digestion systems. Struvite precipitation experiments were carried out using a mixture of cattle slurry liquid fraction and sewage sludge, with and without ultrasound pretreatment. Marine salt or MgCl2 [...] Read more.
The present study aimed to optimize the struvite chemical precipitation process in nitrogen-rich anaerobic co-digestion systems. Struvite precipitation experiments were carried out using a mixture of cattle slurry liquid fraction and sewage sludge, with and without ultrasound pretreatment. Marine salt or MgCl2 were used as magnesium source in NH4+:Mg2+ stoichiometric proportions of 1:1.5 and 1:3. Under the tested conditions, ammonium nitrogen and orthophosphate were removed from the mixed liquor with a maximum observed efficiency of 43% and 92%, respectively, when the ultrasound treatment was applied prior to struvite precipitation, using MgCl2 as source of magnesium (NH4+:Mg2+ of 1:3). The operating time was 40 min. Different pretreatments were tested prior to the biomethanization experiments, struvite precipitation, ultrasound and a combination of both pretreatments. The application of ultrasound (with an energy input of 218 kJ L−1) and struvite precipitation (NH4+:Mg2+ of 1:3) increased the methane content in the biogas by 82% and reduced hydraulic retention time by 28%, when compared to the anaerobic co-digestion assays without pretreatment. The hydrolytic pretreatment increased the bioavailability of nitrogen by 5%, thus enhancing the removal efficiency of ammonium nitrogen by 20%. Consequently, an increase in the carbon to nitrogen ratio was observed, favoring the methanogenesis process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sanitation, Pollution Control and Water Management)
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