Sustainable Technologies for Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

Today more than 2 billion people are living in areas of physical or economic water scarcity, and their health, development and security are threatened. To address the water crisis, provide clean water for all, and protect the ecosystems, actions should be reinforced in order to reduce source pollution and develop appropriate and sustainable wastewater treatment solutions. In this sense, technical and environmental issues in the remediation processes must be articulated with the economic and social background at local and regional levels. In this chapter the concept of sustainability applied to wastewater treatment systems is presented first; then the main sustainability assessment methods are introduced. Finally, a bibliographic review of the most important conventional and emerging wastewater treatment technologies is carried out, focusing on their sustainability characteristics and their advantages and disadvantages when compared among them.