Abstract
The scarcity of water and the need for protecting the environment and natural resources are the main factors leading countries in the Mediterranean region to introduce the reuse of treated wastewater as an additional water resource in their national plans of water resource management. In Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), treatment and reuse of wastewater have already been applied to a certain extent, but there is still great scope for extending these practices.
This chapter aims to identify and discuss factors, which act as constraints to the broader application of treatment and reuse practices and technologies in MPCs. The report largely concentrates on the reuse of wastewater for the purpose of irrigation, which is the most common reuse activity in MPCs.
The key types of constraints reviewed in the report are the following: Financial constraints; Health impacts and environmental safety; Standards and regulations; Monitoring and evaluation; Technical constraints; Institutional set-up; Political commitment; and Public acceptance and awareness.
This chapter also illustrates how certain types of constraints have been recognized and dealt with in practice, by means of specific good practice examples from Tunisia (on national political commitment and farmer involvement), Jordan (on standards development and national political commitment) and Egypt (on grey water treatment in rural areas using low-cost systems).
Despite progress in some cases, further action and research is needed to address the factors currently limiting the application of these technologies in MPCs. The chapter thus puts forward a set of recommendations on priority actions and research needed. Priority recommendations concentrate on the aspects of financing and cost recovery, political commitment for treatment and reuse in the context of national water policies and ways of mitigating risks on public health and the environment.
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Notes
- 1.
Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs): Algeria, Palestinian authority, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria and Turkey.
- 2.
Reported during participants’ discussions at INNOVA-MED Course on Innovative Processes and Practices for Wastewater Treatment and Reuse, 21–24 November 2007, Hammamet, Tunisia.
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Kampa, E., Choukr-Allah, R., Ahmed, M.T., Fürhacker, M. (2010). Constraints of Application of Wastewater Treatment and Reuse in Mediterranean Partner Countries. In: Barceló, D., Petrovic, M. (eds) Waste Water Treatment and Reuse in the Mediterranean Region. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2010_62
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