Implementing Sustainable Sanitation in an Integrated Model - A Straightforward Approach for Long-Term Simulation

Abstract

At present, increasingly requirements aiming resource efficiency and environmental sustainability demand more knowledge about the feasibility of implementation of such technologies in a large-scale as well as in the long-term. Even at modified sewage flows and compositions, water infrastructures must always remain reliable in order to guarantee a sustainable urban water management. Dimensioning methods and assessment variables must be adapted in order to achieve systems that are more flexible in the long-term. This paper aims to assess the actual impact of the implementation of sustainable sanitation systems in an existing sewage disposal system with means of a dynamic simulation. Various scenario simulations showed that the implementation of the module for BW/GW separation represents the investigated sustainable sanitation measures reliably with means of dynamic simulation. Moreover, the impact of the implementation of these measures and the consideration of population decline demand a more dynamical operational flexibility within the WWTP. To sum up, implementing this simplified approach for a stepwise integration of resource-oriented sanitation technologies allows a sewage system evaluation not only for dry weather conditions but also for stormwater conditions.