Managing urban waste water

Abstract

Urban wastewater can be defined as domestic waste water or the mixture of domestic wastewater with industrial waste water and/or runoffrain water. For centuries, wetlands have been used to informally receive wastewater relying on their natural remediative abilities to remove pathogens and breakdown nutrients. However, unregulated and unmanaged discharges to urban wetlands, which are generally subject to a range of over pressures such as drainage for agriculture, reclamation for urban expansion, or exposure to high-strength industrial effluents, can lead to a loss of natural wetland functioning and decline in their capacity to process wastewater as well as provide other vital services. Integrated manage- ment of urban wetlands needs to take into account all the ecosystem services that a wetland provides to people through stakeholder engagement and community engagement and should be designed to ensure that the wetland is managed to function effectively.