Wastewater infrastructure for sustainable cities: assessment based on UN sustainable development goals (SDGs)

ABSTRACT

Among the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG #11 aims to make future cities resilient and sustainable while, SDG #6 aims to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. In this study, the following five attributes for assessing wastewater infrastructure that can support sustainable cities are distilled from the targets set for SDG #11, #6 and other wastewater-related SDGs: reuse-quality water recovery; safe pathogen reduction; energy use and recovery in wastewater treatment; biofertilizer recovery from wastewater; and emission reduction in wastewater treatment. A total of 36 process parameters are derived to quantify these five attributes. Application of this sustainability-based approach in evaluating an emergent algal-based sewage treatment and resource recovery (STaRR) system against the traditional activated sludge-base sewage treatment practices is presented. This study emphasizes the contribution and the influence of wastewater infrastructures for the sustainability of cities and suggests that the emergent STaRR system is a sustainable pathway to provide wastewater utility service to future cities and to accomplish UN SDGs and targets.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable and resilient cities
• environmental conservation
• energy and resource recovery
• algal sewage treatment
• wastewater infrastructure

Acknowledgments

Support provided by the City of Las Cruces Utilities Division in accommodating the algal testbed at the Las Cruces Wastewater Treatment Plant is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Statement of informed consent, human/animal rights

No conflicts, informed consent, human or animal rights applicable.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Reinventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), award [EEC 1028968]; the College of Engineering at New Mexico State University, and the Ed & Harold Foreman Endowed Chair.