scholarly journals Quantitative Indicators of Social Sustainability and Determination of Their Interdependencies. Example Analysis for a Wastewater Treatment Plant

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Popovic ◽  
Andrzej Kraslawski

Social impact as growing concern is becoming an important aspect of the design and operation of wastewater treatment processes. A need has arisen for the development of quantitative indicators of social sustainability. Design and operation of wastewater treatment processes additionally require simple and effective methods to represent and understand the interconnections between the indicators of social sustainability. This paper presents an approach for the development of quantitative social sustainability indicators, and introduces a novel method for defining and visualizing indicator interdependence. It outlines equations for quantitative evaluation of health, safety and security, and comfort. Weighting method of the bipartite network of the relations between the indicators and stakeholders enables clear visualization of the interdependencies of the indicators and facilitates simplification of the set of social sustainability criteria. It creates a basis for reduction of amount of data needed for performing the analysis and reducing the social sustainability assessment’s costs.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicent Penadés-Plà ◽  
David Martínez-Muñoz ◽  
Tatiana García-Segura ◽  
Ignacio J. Navarro ◽  
Víctor Yepes

Most of the definitions of sustainability include three basic pillars: economic, environmental, and social. The economic pillar has always been evaluated but not necessarily in the sense of economic sustainability. On the other hand, the environmental pillar is increasingly being considered, while the social pillar is weakly developed. Focusing on the environmental and social pillars, the use of methodologies to allow a wide assessment of these pillars and the integration of the assessment in a few understandable indicators is crucial. This article is structured into two parts. In the first part, a review of life cycle impact assessment methods, which allow a comprehensive assessment of the environmental and social pillars, is carried out. In the second part, a complete environmental and social sustainability assessment is made using the ecoinvent database and ReCiPe method, for the environmental pillar, and SOCA database and simple Social Impact Weighting method, for the social pillar. This methodology was used to compare three optimized bridges: two box-section post-tensioned concrete road bridges with a variety of initial and maintenance characteristics, and a pre-stressed concrete precast bridge. The results show that there is a high interrelation between the environmental and social impact for each life cycle stage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
Maria Diana Puiu ◽  

The food industry wastewater is known to present a high organic matter content, due to specific raw materials and processing activities. Even if these compounds are not directly toxic to the environment, high concentrations in effluents could represent a source of pollution as discharges of high biological oxygen demand may impact receiving river's ecosystems. Identifying the main organic contaminants in wastewater samples represents the first step in establishing the optimum treatment method. The sample analysis for the non-target compounds through the GC-MS technique highlights, along with other analytical parameters, the efficiency of the main physical and biological treatment steps of the middle-size Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). Long-chain fatty acids and their esters were the main abundant classes of non-target identified compounds. The highest intensity detection signal was reached by n-hexadecanoic acid or palmitic acid, a component of palm oil, after the physical treatment processes with dissolved air flotation, and by 1-octadecanol after biological treatment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niki Black

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of small-scale, rural festivals to the social sustainability of their host communities. Small-scale, community originated festivals proliferate the rural landscape throughout the UK and yet despite this, festival research has focussed predominantly on large, urban events and on their economic impact (Wood, 2009; Gibson and Connell, 2011). This paper seeks to address the perceived research gap by examining these events through a lens of social sustainability. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a case study approach focussed on four festivals in Northumberland, UK. Individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with festival organisers, key figures and visitors. Following a constructivist grounded theory method four principle indicators were identified to determine festival contribution to community social sustainability. These indicators are: contribution to community pride and localness, enhancement of knowledge and understanding, contribution to the continuity of local culture and enablement of networks of connectivity. Findings The findings demonstrate the networks of connections which festivals enable between the culture, heritage and people (individuals and groups) of a place. By focussing on four indicators the paper shows the social impact of connections through the festival processes and content. The paper argues that small-scale festivals in rural locations can contribute to social sustainability if they demonstrate a balance of both consistency and innovation and accessibility and openness within the locale. Originality/value This paper addresses the gap in social impact research into rural festivals and presents an original approach to identify festival impact on community social sustainability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 00024
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Grzelka ◽  
Elżbieta Romanik ◽  
Urszula Miller

Odour nuisance generated by food industry objects is a significant problem, the result of which is often numerous complaints from local residents about the quality of air. Apart from the production process, this problem often concerns industrial wastewater treatment processes, which contribute to a large extent to the emissions of odorants from the sulphur group, including hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans. In order to estimate the odorous air quality around these types of objects, the modelling of dispersion of pollutants: odours or odorants is often used. The paper presents the results of tests on odour emission as well as hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans emission as compounds typical for waste gases from the sewage treatment process from the food industry. In order to estimate the range of odour impact, model calculations using the Polish reference model for the aforementioned substances were made. The values of annual average concentrations and frequency of odour detection thresholds for odorants and odour concentration of 1 ouE/m3 for odours as a mixture in a computational grid of 1400 m x 1400 m with a step of 50 m were calculated. The results showed the highest range of odour impact of mercaptans, whose value of the average annual concentration exceeded the odour detection threshold up to 700 m in the east and west direction from the emission source.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali R. Ahmadi Motlagh ◽  
Stephen Lacy ◽  
Madan Arora ◽  
Jim Ross ◽  
Jeff Misenhimer

With shortage of water becoming a major concern in many areas, use of recycled water is a necessity for a growing number of municipalities. This paper describes a case study in which two alternatives were considered for upgrading an existing wastewater treatment plant with the goal of producing recycled water. The first alternative consisted of conventional secondary and tertiary unit processes while the second alternative included the advanced treatment technology of membrane bioreactor (MBR). Also, two alternatives were evaluated for disinfection of recycled water; chlorine gas and UV system. The more advanced treatment technologies (MBR + UV), which produce the higher quality recycled water, resulted in higher cost. The paper discusses the design and project execution approaches as how the more expensive advanced treatment processes were made cost competitive with the conventional treatment processes.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 335-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Koottatep ◽  
C. Leesanga ◽  
H. Araki

Intermittent aeration has been proved to be an efficient method in nitrogen removal in many biological treatment processes. Aerated lagoon has been used as domestic wastewater treatment for a small housing estates in Thailand for quite sometime. The purpose of this study is to determine whether intermittent aeration of aerated lagoon could provide efficient nitrogen removal in domestic wastewater. The experiment was carried out using pilot scale aerated lagoon at Chiangmai University. The result showed that 45% of total nitrogen removal could be achieved by aeration and non-aeration of 12 hours each cycle. The intermittent aeration did not affect organic substances removal of the process. Sludge recycle during non-aeration period may improve total nitrogen removal. The method could be introduced to save energy of small wastewater treatment plant.


Author(s):  
T.D.C. Pushpakumara ◽  
◽  
W.G.T. Sandakelum ◽  

The use of sludge as fertilizers helps to the recycling of nutrients to the environment due to its beginning from wastewater and therefore relatively high content of nutrients and organic matter. However, wastewater does also contain hazardous compounds like heavy metals and micro pollutants which eventually are separated to the sludge during the treatment processes at the wastewater treatment plant. In order to improve the sludge quality, source tracking is a relatively cheap and effective way to find and eliminate hazardous compounds and prevent them from ending up in the sludge. The aim with this thesis was to investigate the fertilizer potential in sludge from wastewater treatment plant. The sludge is analyzed in terms of nutrient and heavy metal contents as well as physiochemical parameters. In order to determine the potential as fertilizer, the quality of the sludge is compared with other fertilizer alternatives, other sludge types and regulations for sludge use in agriculture. The work with sludge quality improvements in Gaborone is also investigated. Sludge from different stages along the treatment processes were collected in order to see differences in quality related to the treatment. The results shows that the samples of primary an aerobically treated sludge tend to have higher heavy metal content than the secondary sludge. The quality of the dry sludge samples indicates lower nutrient content than both the primary and secondary sludge, but similar heavy metal content. The analysis of dry sludge from indicates a low nutrient value and high heavy metal content in comparison to other selected fertilizer options and sludge from other. The processes for removal of nutrients from the wastewater are an important factor for the nutrient content in the sludge. Keywords wastewater; fertilizers; nutrients; sludge treatment


Author(s):  
Kerem Toker

Despite the discussion of social sustainability, which has been a crucial component of sustainable development for decades, unfortunately, the desired successful outcomes have not been realized in practice. This failure caused the need to examine the concept of social sustainability differently than ever before. Social entrepreneurship is a valuable tool to meet this need. Concordantly, this chapter purposes to evaluate the relations between social sustainability and social entrepreneurship by comprehensively analyzing them. Discussing this relationship and proposing a new perspective will support overcome theoretical dilemmas and practical struggles. Therefore, the concept of sustainability was explained in detail through a wide literature review, and then the concept of social entrepreneurship was examined, and links, similarities, and gaps were revealed between the two concepts. As a result, the effective implementation of social sustainability policies depends on the social impact and value created by social entrepreneurship.


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