Development of a Tool to Analyze Wastewater Treatment Sustainability: Indicators to Assess Technologies for Rural Areas in Developing Countries

摘要

Around 37 % of the world's population - 2.5 billion people - lack of improved sanitation facilities, especially in developing countries. Many constraints, such as country's development priorities, financial restrictions, specific geographical conditions, society's particular mindset or setting priority on energy supply issues often place sanitation development in lower priority. Therefore, nimplementing the most appropriate and sustainable wastewater technology and management, which considers these constraints as well as local potentials, can help to solve the problem. Sustainable technology is very similar to what is commonly defined as appropriate technology- namely a technology that is compatible or adaptable to the natural, economic, technical, and social environments and according goals, and that offers a possibility for further development. It depends strongly on its relation with local conditions (idea of appropriate, socially embedded technologies). To analyse the sustainability of technological solutions, analysis on the interaction of technologies with several dimensions (environment, society, economic, health) is required. This paper presents (1) a methodology of a wastewater treatment sustainability assessment tool, which allows for taking into account particular local conditions, and (2) first results of an application of the tool. The tool serves as a decision support to select the most appropriate wastewater technology for instance in particular case studies in developing countries. A pilot case is selected in the frame of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Project in Java, Indonesia. This paper discusses the methodology and the development of the tool. Both, the assessment method and the tool's application for the pilot case are still under development.