1. Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
TreatRec - Interdisciplinary concepts for municipal wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Tackling future challenges
Future challenges in wastewater treatment and opportunities for sustainability development
Peter Daldorph, Geoff Darch, Arthur Thornton
MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE ACTIONS
Innovative Training Networks (ITN) Modality: EID – European Industrial Doctorate
Call: H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014

2. Contributors to this talk
Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions

3. Topics covered Introduction Challenges to wastewater treatment
Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Topics covered
Introduction
Challenges to wastewater treatment
Chemicals
Systems failure
Growth
Climate change
Regulation
Planning for a sustainable future

4. Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Our perspective
Atkins is an international engineering and science consultancy – with
approximately 25,000 employees
We work with policy makers, regulators and industry across the world
My work is primarily based in the U.K. with regulators such as the
Environment Agency and water companies
This lecture is based on our experience of working with these clients,
primarily in the United Kingdom

5. Hard to plan for as we do not know what these chemicals are
Risks to wastewater treatment
and planning for them
The water industry has always managed risk – this is not new
Existing risks but new regulation
New regulation: Emission and environmental standards change as scientific understanding of the risks from chemicals improves
Existing risks but environmental stressors change
Stressors: Population growth, climate change (temperature, storm events and dilution)
New risks
New chemicals: New chemicals enter the environment as industry evolves
Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Can plan against current/proposed standards but future changes in standards hard to predict
Risk management based on analysis of likely frequency and magnitude of events
Hard to plan for as we do not know what these chemicals are

6. Constraints
Capital legacy: An enormous amount of money has been invested in wastewater treatment works in the last 30 years. There is also a great diversity in the size of works and the type of treatment processes. Dealing with the risks will require different approaches at different types of works.
Finance: There are likely to be increasing financial constraints on how much we can invest in wastewater treatment. We therefore need to prioritise where to invest and determine the timescales over which these changes can be made.
Capital and operational costs change as commodity and energy prices change.

7. Chemicals Pollution events and illegal discharges
Catastrophic failure of treatment works (a few incidents of this nature occur in the U.K each year)
Events with lower toxicity are likely to be more frequent; broadly correlated with upstream urban population and industrial activity.
The frequency of these events is reduced by the pollution control and effluent permitting but this does not eliminate the risk
Such events have become less frequent in the U.K. as regulation of industry has improved and industrial activity has declined.

8. Chemicals Pollution events and illegal discharges
Improving regulation and policing is important
Can treatment works be made more robust in dealing with chemical shocks?
Can early warning telemetry systems be set up in the sewer network?

9. Chemicals Regulation of priority hazardous substances
Evolving list of chemicals and standards

10. Chemicals
How much of these chemicals are going into wastewater treatment works? Chemicals Investigation Programme
How good are existing and new treatment processes at removing them? Chemicals Investigation Programme
How much does this cause problems in the downstream rivers with compliance with environmental standards? SAGIS
How do these inputs and outputs from wastewater treatment works compare to other sources (polluter pays principle)? SAGIS
How much does it cost to control the problem? RGO7/8 and optimisation

11. The Chemical Investigations Programme
Chemicals
The Chemical Investigations Programme
Water companies in England, Wales and Scotland established the £25M Chemical Investigations Programme Phase 1 (CIP1).
Co-ordinated by UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR)
Programme ran between 2007 and Outputs: *
prioritisation of substances in wastewater
Characterisation of removal in treatments
Examination of sources.
Gardner et al. (2012), Sci. Total Environ. 437:
Gardner M et al. (2013). Science of the Total Environment (2013) –369
Jones V et al. Chemosphere, (2014) –484
Comber et al. Environmental Technology, (2014) 36(5),

12. CIP programme 162 wastewater treatment works
Sampling of influent/effluent and throughout the wastewater treatment process.
Sludge sampling
Determination of c. 40 trace substances, including metals, pharmaceuticals, PAHs, plasticisers, flame retardants, and other emerging chemicals (e.g. triclosan)

13. CIP1 ‘highlights’
Concentrations in influent/effluent - relatively homogenous between works.
Substances of most concern include: brominated fire retardants, PAHs, steroids, some pharmaceuticals, copper and zinc.
Wastewater treatment processes achieve high removal for most substances. Due to the low EQS, sometimes this is not sufficient to achieve in-river compliance*.
The principal source of most trace substances in wastewater is domestic.
Concentrations in sludge and predicted concentrations in soil largely below regulatory/environmental standards.

14. Moving on to CIP Phase 2
On completion of CIP1, it became clear that additional investigations were necessary
Requirement for a national assessment of compliance risk at a more site specific level
Further examination of treatment technologies
Catchment-wide controls?

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CIP2
Laboratories
Pilots and Feasibility
Phosphorus
Catchments
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Impact on compliance?
SAGIS (Source Apportionment GIS)
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SAGIS?
National datasets
Psychic outputs – agricultural P and soil loss, manure use, agric land cover, soil type
Mineralogical data
NEAP-N – agricultural N
PI – direct to controlled waters and WwTW
Minewater loads (reported discharges)
CSO/Storm tank locations
Rainfall intensity (Highways Agency)
OsWwTS (septic tank) locations
Water Industry data - UKWIR WW17 – influent/effluent/runoff quality
Water company data - WwTW flows, processes, locations and biosolid quality and quantity to land (anonymised/grid applications)
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18. Structure of SAGIS Point Sources
Export Coefficient Database
Point
WwTW (small)
Combined Sewer Overflows
Storm tank overflows
Industrial inputs
Mine water inputs
Diffuse
Simcat
GIS
Nutrients – Phosphorus, and nitrogen
Metals – Copper, zinc, lead, cadmium, nickel, mercury
Organics - Di-ethylhexyl phthalate, PAHs (naphthalaene, anthracene, fluoranthene, benzo-a-pyrene, benzo-b-fluoranthere, benzo-k-fluoranthene, benzo-ghi-perylene, indeno-123,cd-pyrene), TBT, Nonylphenol, Triclosan, EE2, BDEs
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19. Structure of SAGIS Diffuse Sources
Export Coefficient Database
Diffuse
Surface water run-off
Background inputs
Livestock inputs
Arable inputs
OsWwTW inputs
Highway run-off
Atmospheric deposition
Point
Simcat
GIS
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Structure of SAGIS
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SAGIS example outputs
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SAGIS example outputs
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SAGIS example outputs
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24. Estimated cost of measures
Determinand
Non-compliant WBs
Run-off
Mines
WwTW
Aggregate
WBs eligible for measure
WBs compliant from measure
WBs eligible for measures (inputs from all sectors)
WBs compliant from measures
Copper
178 66 4 10 37 8
103 21
Zinc
109 53 32 14 3 96 24
Nickel
271 52 6 39 9 90 20
Nonylphenol
258
235 42
n/a 60 22
252
DEHP
111 91 7 34
108
Benzo-a-pyrene
4,891
1,150
221 2 11
All (unique)
1,213 13
296 29
1,272 36
Cost (£bn)
£8.27 to £33.53
£0.11
£2.42 to £9.30
£10.80 to £42.94
Based on modelled impact on compliance and effectiveness and costs of treatment measures (UKWIR - RG07 COST EFFECTIVENESS OF MEASURES IN OTHER SECTORS)
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25. Estimated cost of measures
Potential investment on wastewater treatment very large – big impact on investment planning and design of wastewater treatment works
How can this be carried out efficiently?
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26. Where to improve treatment
Complexities
Many different chemicals
Multiple sources of chemicals.
Differences in the spatial extent of risk for different chemicals.
Different treatment options for different chemicals.
Measures aimed at one chemical have implications for others.
Multiple and sometimes competing objectives.
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27. Where to improve treatment
Critical uncertainties
The effectiveness of measures.
Limits on precision of effectiveness and cost estimates
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28. Spatial optimisation of treatment
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29. Spatial optimisation of treatment
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30. Spatial optimisation of treatment
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Systems failure
Failure of systems in a wastewater treatment works – pumps, blowers, control systems for dosing chemicals etc.
Major cause of pollution events in the U.K.
Historical data will provide information of likelihood of systems failure
Could collection of this data be improved?
Better data would help improve design of treatment works
How can risk of systems failure be improved – better monitoring, telemetry, maintenance procedures etc.
Should the systems be regulated and policed as well as the performance of a treatment works?
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Population growth
Population has always grown
Model impact on treatment processes and downstream impacts
Water companies and regulators take into account growth in planned infrastructure investment
Linked to growth and development planning by local authorities
Growth may result in more industry in the catchment and risk of chemical shock
WFD ‘no deterioration’ is a key issue in relation to growth
Particularly a problem where there are large discharges to headwaters
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Population growth
Urbanisation: People in the UK are increasingly living in urban areas. The urban population of the UK has risen from 77% in 1970 to 90% in This has meant that many of our most significant cities have grown substantially in recent decades. The population of Birmingham
increased 9% between 2001 and 2011.
This shifts the balance from rural to urban wastewater treatment plants.
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Modelling impacts of growth
Where will growth occur?
What will the impact be?
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Climate change
Approach:
Identify variables of greatest interest to wastewater treatment (particularly inflows to works)
Use the latest evidence: UKCP09 projections
For precipitation (and dry periods): extract relevant information using amended version of the Weather generator Rainfall Analysis Processing Tool (WRAPT)
Provide evidence in relation to risks of future threshold exceedance
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36. Climate change projections (U.K)
Summary
Uncertainty
Wetter winters – general increase in storm intensity but number of events similar to baseline
Drier summers – longer dry periods; possibly less intense storm events but number of events similar to baseline
Increase in average summer and winter temperatures
Increase in maximum summer temperatures
Increase in sea level
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37. Treatment works: impacts
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Networks: impacts
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39. Regulation and planning
Different approaches to regulation of wastewater discharges are adopted in Europe:
Regulation of effluent quality
Emission (‘end of pipe’) standards of effluent quality
Environmental water quality standards and permitting to ensure these are achieved.
Percentile, upper tier or annual average type standards
The spatial and temporal scale at which standards are applied varies
All influence flexibility with which treatment works can be designed and operated
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Regulation of treatment process
Should flexibility and systems resilience be regulated? 40 40
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41. Principles of Good Regulation
Proportionality - to the risk and balanced with costs and benefits
Transparency - open, simple and user friendly
Consistency - predictable, so that people know
where they stand
Targeting - focused on the problem, with minimal side effects (e.g. Carbon)
Accountability - to Ministers and Parliament, to users and the public
Efficiency – Achieve required outcomes at minimum cost (operator and regulator costs)
Enforcability
Source: Better Regulation Task Force, Principles of Good Regulation.
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42. Innovative permitting
What might it allow?
Treatment optimisation – Process optimisation to improve treatment performance and efficiency (e.g. variability in effluent quality)
Real Time Control (RTC) - Temporal changes in the operation of wastewater processes to allow reduced levels of treatment when a receiving water has a greater capacity to assimilate a higher wastewater load or the sensitivity to the load is less (e.g. In winter)
Catchment Based Control (CBC) - Changes in the allocation of treatment effort spatially between different treatment works 42 42
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43. Innovative permitting43 43
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44. Planning for the future
Key questions
How do we build in treatment of chemicals into design planning (allow additional treatment if required)?
How do we plan for a long period taking into account all the uncertainties about the future without massively increasing costs?
What planning methods would help (e.g. modelling of treatment)
Do we need more flexible regulation?
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45. Planning for the future
Clearly - there is a lot to think about when planning for the future
Planning should be ‘least regrets’ – i.e. investment should be efficient – not requiring further investment as new issues come along
Planning should build in resilience because we do not know exactly what is going to happen in the future
The regulatory framework should help not hinder planning
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46. Planning wastewater treatment
Industrial scale treatment Small scale local treatment
versus
Able to deal with range of chemicals
Economy of scale
Easier to apply advanced technology
Large single point of discharge (consequences of failure greater)
Large energy requirements
Operational and maintenance costs high
High carbon footprint
Low cost and carbon footprint
More diffuse impact (consequences of failure low)
Cannot to apply advanced technology
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47. Planning wastewater treatment:
Advanced technology and control
Can technology make treatments works more reactive to changes in influent flow and quality (e.g. link to continuous monitoring)?
Can technology control improve the efficiency of treatment and reduce costs and carbon footprint?
Can technology be retrofitted onto old treatment works?
Does technology only work with certain types of treatment process?
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48. Planning for the future
Scenario planning:
Create scenarios for how the future might look and plan against these:
Use modelling and analytical tools to estimate the magnitude of change (e.g. climate change modelling)
The future is always uncertain – uncertainty analysis needs to be part of planning
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Any questions?
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