title: A spatial multicriteria decision making tool to define the best agricultural areas for sewage sludge amendment.
abstract: Sewage sludge amendment on agricultural soils has recently become a practice of heightened interest, as a consequence of sewage sludge production increase. This practice has benefits to soil and crops, however it may also lead to environmental contamination, depending on the characteristics of the fields. In order to define the suitability of the different agricultural fields to receive sewage sludge, a spatial tool is proposed. This tool, elaborated in GIS platform, aggregates different criteria regarding human exposure and environmental contamination. The spatial tool was applied to a case study in the region of Catalonia (NE of Spain). Within the case study, each step of the tool development is detailed. The results show that the studied region has different suitability degrees, being the appropriate areas sufficient for receiving the total amount of sewage sludge produced. The sensitivity analysis showed that "groundwater contamination", "distance to urban areas", "metals concentration in soil" and "crop type" are the most important criteria of the evaluation. The developed tool successfully tackled the problem, providing a comprehensive procedure to evaluate agricultural land suitability to receive sewage sludge as an organic fertilizer. Also, the tool implementation gives insights to decision makers, guiding them to more confident decisions, based on an extensive group of criteria.
authors: Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Departament d'Enginyeria Quimica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors: Ana
authors: A
authors: Passuello
authors: Oda
authors: O
authors: Cadiach
authors: Yolanda
authors: Y
authors: Perez
authors: Marta
authors: M
authors: Schuhmacher
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D003657:Decision Making; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005308:Fertilizers / Q000032:analysis; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D060587:Groundwater / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012722:Sewage / Q000032:analysis*; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D013030:Spain
chemical_list: D005308:Fertilizers; D012722:Sewage; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants