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Post-treatment and reuse of secondary effluents using natural ltreatment systems: the Indian practices

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Abstract

Paper summarizes the results of India-wide survey of natural treatment systems (NTSs) for wastewater treatment and reuse. The quality of treated wastewater from different types of NTSs was analyzed for various physico-chemical and bacteriological parameters, and needs for post-treatment were identified. Currently, about 1838 million liters per day (MLD) of wastewater is being treated using NTSs, of which the contributions of polishing ponds, waste stabilization ponds, duckweed ponds, constructed wetlands, and Karnal technology were found to be 53.39, 45.15, 0.13, 0.55, and 0.78 %, respectively. Among the NTSs studied, constructed wetland was found most efficient in removal of pollutants including nitrogen, phosphorus, total coliform, and fecal coliform in the range of 76, 61, 99.956, and 99.923 %, respectively. Of all types of NTSs, only constructed wetland was found to meet the total coliform count requirements (<1000 per 100 ml). Of all the 108 NTSs in operation, 23 systems are producing treated effluents for irrigation; effluents from 48 systems are being discharged into river or lake, and remaining 38 systems have not found any designated use of treated effluent. The chlorination was the only post-treatment, which is being practiced at only three wastewater treatment facilities. During post-treatment, 1–2 ppm of chlorine is applied to the secondary effluent irrespective of its quality. The treated effluents from different NTSs contain fecal bacteria in the magnitude of 103 to 105, which may cause the severe health impacts through contamination of groundwater as well as surface water resources.

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Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the co-funding of the project leading to these results by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme under Grant Number 282911, India and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) for this work. Authors are grateful to support and help extended by the various governmental authorities and boards for facilitating national survey and data and wastewater sample collection.

Ethical statements

I am sending a manuscript entitled, “Post-Treatment and Reuse of Secondary Effluents using Natural Treatment Systems: the Indian Practices” authored by Kumar D. Asolekar S. R. and Sharma S. K. The submitted work has not been published before and approved by all co-authors. Authors will be merely responsible for any claims for compensation or unethical objects.

I hereby would like to enlighten the following ethical statements:

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    The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

  2. 2.

    This study was co-funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme under Grant Number 282911 and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), India.

  3. 3.

    The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work.

  4. 4.

    A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g., “salami-publishing”).

  5. 5.

    No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions.

  6. 6.

    No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works have been given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased); quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material.

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    Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities—tacitly or explicitly—at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.

  8. 8.

    Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

  9. 9.

    The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

  10. 10.

    Experiment did not involve human and animals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    D. Kumar & S. R. Asolekar

  2. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands

    S. K. Sharma

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  1. D. Kumar
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Correspondence to D. Kumar.

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Kumar, D., Asolekar, S.R. & Sharma, S.K. Post-treatment and reuse of secondary effluents using natural ltreatment systems: the Indian practices. Environ Monit Assess 187, 612 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4792-z

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