Recycling treated water for irrigation helps preserving fresh water
Water collected in urban sewage systems can be treated at different degrees, in order to reach specific quality requirements. If correctly treated, therefore, it can be re-used for other uses, for example in water-sanitary systems or for irrigation, instead of being returned, polluted, to the environment.
In this way a two-fold objective is reached: non pristine waters are re-used and not returned to environment, and their re-use helps partially covering the demand, and therefore reduce consumption, of clean fresh water for uses where high quality of water is not required. Water resources of good quality can be saved for priority drinking use.
ACCBAT project focuses on the re-use of treated urban wastewater for irrigation in semi-arid countries.