Evaluating alternative strategies for wastewater recycling and reuse in the Mediterranean area

The concept of sustainability in wastewater reclamation and reuse in the Mediterranean area needs to be expressed in a realistic and practical way. This paper suggests a suitable methodology for sustainable wastewater reuse in the Mediterranean area by considering not only technical and economic, but also, environmental and social aspects of wastewater reuse. Alternative strategies based on different treatment and storage technologies are evaluated by using the Multicriterion Decision Analysis (MCDA) method. Alternative strategies are formulated by combining elements such as different treatments, different disposal sites, the type of irrigation scheme, crop pattern, water pricing and the use of fertilizers. The criteria used to evaluate the most sustainable strategy include firstly public health and environmental factors, that pose risks on human health, water pollution during and after irrigation, efficiency of water use, secondly economic factors, including the water cost, the initial cost of the irrigation system, maintenance costs and crop profitability, and thirdly social issues including the employment of rural labour. Various MCDA techniques, namely, ELECTRE-3, ELECTRE-4 and Compromise Programming (CP) may be employed to rank alternative strategies and find out the most sustainable alternative.