title: Assessing the sustainability of small wastewater treatment systems: a composite indicator approach.
abstract: The assessment of the sustainability of wastewater treatment (WWT) systems has gained interest in recent years. However, most previous studies have focused on environmental and/or economic dimensions ignoring social aspects. Moreover, they tend to be based on sets of indicators rather than providing a holistic assessment. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes an innovative methodology to assess the sustainability of WWT systems based on the development of a composite indicator embracing economic, environmental and social issues. Subsequently, the global sustainability of seven WWT technologies for secondary treatment in small communities is compared. The joint application of the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) to assign weights to each indicator allows the incorporation of the preferences of experts. Initially, the global sustainability of the WWT technologies evaluated is quite similar. However, a scenario analysis illustrates that constructed wetlands technology is the most sustainable in five out of the seven scenarios evaluated. Moreover, extended aeration and rotating biological contactors are identified as the technologies with the lowest variability in their sustainability. Hence, in an uncertain context, they might be considered the preferred options. The proposed approach contributes to ease of interpretation of a complex problem such as the selection of the most sustainable WWT alternative.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics for Economics, University of Valencia, Campus dels Tarongers, 46022 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: maria.molinos@uv.es.
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Molinos-Senante
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Economics (Mathematics), University of Malaga, Campus El Ejido, 29071 Málaga, Spain. Electronic address: trinidad@uma.es.
authors.forename: Trinidad
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. Electronic address: manelg@uci.edu.
authors.forename: Manel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garrido-Baserba
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Economics (Mathematics), University of Malaga, Campus El Ejido, 29071 Málaga, Spain. Electronic address: rafael.caballero@uma.es.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Caballero
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics for Economics, University of Valencia, Campus dels Tarongers, 46022 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: ramon.sala@uv.es.
authors.forename: Ramón
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sala-Garrido
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D062065:Wastewater; D053833:Wetlands
chemical_list: D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Analytical hierarchical process (AHP); Composite indicator; Decision making; Small communities; Sustainability; Wastewater treatment