Characteristics of source-separated household wastewater flows: a statistical assessment

Knowledge of concentrations or loads in wastewater flows is a basic prerequisite for the design of wastewater treatment units and the assessment of the environmental impacts. With respect to new sanitation concepts that are based on the source-separation of domestic wastewater flows not much general data is available yet on characteristics or design values of the different flows. A desk study of more than 130 references was carried out in order to arrive at design values for different source-separated wastewater flows including the fractions urine, faeces and greywater. The evaluation was carried out focussing on European data. The different values were analysed by the use of statistical parameters. In order to arrive at design values for different parameters, the median as well as minimum-maximum ranges of the available data were calculated. The collected data include volumes and characteristics like organic pollution (COD and BOD), nutrients (N, P, K & S) and heavy metals for the different source-separated flows. Loads and concentrations are listed respectively. A comparison is drawn between data from different regions in order to assess the impact of differences in nutrition and habits.