Water Reuse: Diverse Questions in View of an Internationally Increasing Relevance

In view of growing international demand for water and limited natural water resources, the reuse of wastewater as an element of sustainable water resource management will gain more and more importance. Although water reuse is a well-established practice in many regions of the world, especially for agricultural irrigation, projects for reuse of treated wastewater are still a complex task for consultants, equipment suppliers and plant operators. In addition to the usual process-engineering issues relating to wastewater treatment, several further constraints including institutional, economic and socio-cultural aspects which vary from country to country have to be taken into account. The DWA publication series “DWA Topics” on “Treatment Steps for Water Reuse” contains several explanations of this topic; excerpts from this publication are included in the present article, which was published in a modified German version in KA – Korrespondenz Abwasser Abfall, issue 1/2012