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Carbon Footprint of Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2018) | Viewed by 20559

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin D02, Ireland
Interests: coastal and ocean engineering; earth science and hydrology; energy and climate change; environmental engineering; water pollution; groundwater; hydraulics; renewable energy; waste management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites research articles on the carbon footprint of water supply and wastewater treatment. Such studies could focus on centralised water treatment and supply networks and/or sewerage networks and wastewater treatment plants. Equally, the research could focus on more decentralised or on-site water and wastewater treatment systems. Comparison between centralised versus decentralised approaches to water provision and wastewater treatment would also be most welcome. The use of life cycle analysis is increasingly being used to determine net carbon emissions of the overall systems or individual treatment processes, or studies may focus on the operational carbon footprint of existing infrastructure. Aspects, such as water-related energy requirements (and opportunities for energy recovery), direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and evaluation of different water management strategies to reduce carbon emissions (e.g., water conservation, efficiency, reuse, passive treatment etc.), are encouraged.

Prof. Laurence Gill
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Water 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 2600 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

  • carbon footprint
  • life cycle analysis
  • water treatment and supply
  • wastewater treatment
  • centralised
  • decentralised
  • energy-water nexus

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 2641 KiB  
Article
End Use Level Water and Energy Interactions: A Large Non-Residential Building Case Study
by Sudeep Nair, Hafiz Hashim, Louise Hannon and Eoghan Clifford
Water 2018, 10(6), 810; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10060810 - 19 Jun 2018
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5444
Abstract
Within the European Union, buildings account for around 40% of the energy use and 36% of CO2 emissions, thus representing a significant challenge in the context of recent EU directives that require all new buildings to be nearly zero-energy by 2020. Reduced [...] Read more.
Within the European Union, buildings account for around 40% of the energy use and 36% of CO2 emissions, thus representing a significant challenge in the context of recent EU directives that require all new buildings to be nearly zero-energy by 2020. Reduced consumption of water, and hot water in particular, provides a significant opportunity to reduce energy consumption. While there have been numerous studies pertaining to the water-energy nexus of residential buildings, the complexity of water networks in larger buildings has meant that this area has been relatively unexplored. The paper presents a comprehensive investigation of the hot water use profile, associated energy use, on-site pumping energy use, carbon emissions, and solar energy harvesting potential in an Irish university building over periods before and after water conservation efforts. Total water-related energy consumption (including the heating and pumping losses) were analysed using the WHAM model and modified pumping energy expressions. The results revealed that water heating including losses contributed to as high as 30% of total building energy consumption, and stringent water conservation measures reduced the average hot water use rate by 8.5 m3/day. It was found that 10% of the total pumping energy was constituted by pump start-ups. Simulation results for solar harvesting potential in the study site found that around 60% of water heating energy demand could be met by solar energy in the new water demand scenario. The study results can act as a benchmark for similar buildings, and the model combination can be emulated in future studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Footprint of Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment)
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20 pages, 452 KiB  
Article
Addressing Desalination’s Carbon Footprint: The Israeli Experience
by Alon Tal
Water 2018, 10(2), 197; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10020197 - 12 Feb 2018
Cited by 49 | Viewed by 14276
Abstract
Given the extraordinary proliferation of seawater desalination plants, Israel’s transition to become a country that almost exclusively relies on desalination for municipal water supply is instructive as a case study, especially given concerns about the technology’s prodigious carbon footprint. This article offers a [...] Read more.
Given the extraordinary proliferation of seawater desalination plants, Israel’s transition to become a country that almost exclusively relies on desalination for municipal water supply is instructive as a case study, especially given concerns about the technology’s prodigious carbon footprint. This article offers a detailed description of the country’s desal experience with a focus on the associated energy requirements, environmental policies and perspectives of decision makers. Israel’s desalination plants are arguably the most energy-efficient in the world. The present consensus among government engineers, however, is that meaningful improvements in energy efficiency are unlikely in the foreseeable future. Official evaluations of increased introduction of solar-driven reverse osmosis (RO) processes concluded that mitigation of greenhouse gases will have to be attained in industries other than the water sector. The article details myriad environmental benefits that desalination has brought the country. However, it argues that given the imperative of stabilizing atmospheric concentration of carbon, and the modest renewable energy supply to Israel’s national grid to date, public policy can no longer offer the water industry a path of least resistance. Present plans envision a significant expansion of Israel’s desal infrastructure, requiring a far higher commitment to renewable energy supply and regulations phasing down present energy demands. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Footprint of Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment)
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