Page 24 - ie2 August 2019

TECH FRONTIERS

Figure2: Waste water treatment and reclamation perspective

Maintaining Water Quality through Wastewater Reclaim and Reuse

Main categories of
water reuse

Drinking Water reuse
water Ultra-pure
recycled Industrial uses
Quality of water fresh water Water treatment Municipal and industrial uses Wastewater treatment Recycled water Urban Potable reuse Even though WW is 99.98
water
Natural

The 0.02 percent
Treatment Agriculture percent pure water
Effluent contaminants is still a
problem

Time sequence

C Visvanathan/Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Water quality and security in Asia Pacific: What 3R and Circular Economy can Offer?

ment goals. Water is critical for socio- Rainwater harvesting will be the corner- which promotes better water reuse ap-
economic development, healthy ecosys- stone of the urban circular water econo- plications.
tems, and for human survival itself. The my development. There are other innovative solutions
pressure on global water resources (both Advancing 3Rs and circular econo- like Phyco-remediation that refers to
surface and ground water) is increasing my encourage the use of treated water the use of algae for treating wastewater.
due to growing gap between water sup- and sustainable use of water resources Algae are green, microscopic plants that
ply and demand, anthropogenic water to achieve a number of benefits such as survived extremely harsh, prehistoric
pollution, and climate change impacts. safe drinking water and effective sanita- environmental conditions and helped
Urban centres in the Asia Pacific regions tion system, among others. As regards produce oxygen on earth and bring
are highly vulnerable to water security wastewater reuse applications the key down the earth’s temperatures. Nature
issues and urban resilience is a concern is innovations in wastewater treatment also uses algae to treat rivers and lakes.
internationally. The concern regarding and recycling technologies. A perspec- Since millennia, our civilisations have
water sharing disputes (domestic and tive on this is outlined in Figure2. spawned near rivers, but pollution had
international) is also an issue to be tack- To achieve the circular water economy never been a problem because of the
led. On the domestic water consumption option, there is a need to revisit the con- remediation work carried out by algae.
side, focus should be on development ventional centralised water and waste- However, because of the surge in popu-
of innovative water saving appliances. water treatment to decentralised system lation growth, construction of dams and

24 l INDIAN ENGINEERING EXPORTS l AUGUST 2019