Urban Environmental Technology and Management

Environmental Problems

The speed and scale of urbanization especially in the developing world do not cope with basic urban services. Proper treatment and management of especially domestic wastewater and (solid) waste in cities, is a major challenge.  At this moment, 2.6 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate sanitation and more than 1 billion have no access to safe drinking water. Millennium Development Goals aim at halving by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, but many developing countries will not succeed in achieving this. Sanitation includes a chain of collection, transport, treatment and reuse of domestic wastewater and waste. With a growing demand for renewable energy and decreasing availability of resources such as phosphate and (depending on the location) water, domestic (waste)water is increasingly recognized as a source of raw materials.  When properly ‘managed’, domestic waste (water) can become an important resource instead of being a threat for human health and environment.  Also in industrialized countries recovery of resources becomes more and more important.  At several locations in Europe, new sanitation concepts based on source separation and recovery of resources are demonstrated.

    

Dr.ir. Grietje Zeeman

Our Solutions

Our research focuses on development of sustainable concepts and technologies for urban water, sanitation, waste and energy management.

The research focus on one hand on the development of new concepts for collection, transport treatment and use of water and waste, on the other hand on development of technologies, which can be implemented within such concepts. New sanitation concepts are based on separation of waste (water) streams at source, to enable possibilities of recovery and reuse of water and resources. The collection, transport and treatment methods are strongly interrelated and finally determine the possibilities of recovery and reuse of resources like energy, nutrients, compost and energy (water). The final choice of the concept will strongly depend on local needs, circumstances and habits. New technologies are developed to recover energy, nutrients and clean water from black water, urine, kitchen waste and grey water. The demanded product quality depends on its final destination.  Treated grey water can for example be used for irrigation purposes, for urban water (landscaping) or even in the household for f.e. laundry, ‘gardens’ irrigation.

Our Approach

A city is approached following the ‘urban harvest model’, where maximum recovery, local reuse of resources and minimum emissions to the environment are aimed at. Technologies are developed using real wastewater and finally demonstrated in cooperation with stakeholders on a practically relevant scale. At introducing new concepts and technologies for collection, transport, treatment and reuse of waste (water), management of the innovation processes is of crucial importance. The socio-economic and technology context has to be evenly considered. Cooperation with WUR departments on Environmental Policy, System analysis and Economics is therefore realized in several projects.  For example, the PROVIDE project focuses on the improvement of sanitation and solid waste management in cities in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) with an emphasis on the Lake Victoria Region. Developing and assessing the modernized mixtures approach (MMA approach) is the focal point. This approach integrates the (eco) technological, economic, social and governance dimensions of new environmental infrastructures against the background of specific local contexts.

     

Dr.ir. Katarzyna Kujawa-Roeleveld