Goen Ho

This book provides a practical and technical focus on environmental engineering technologies and will serve engineers, designers, architects, and project developers that seek to successfully integrate them into urban, rural, and remote settlements. These professionals need to work closely together and understand the technologies to be utilized, therefore this book presents the technologies in an applied manner along with a brief discussion of the underpinning principles in order to ensure correct selection from the various options available and their successful integration into the project at hand, whether an individual building or an entire district.

Dr. Martin Anda is an environmental engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the energy efficiency, renewable energy, water recycling and built environment sectors. In 2007 he designed and launched the Environmental Engineering degree program at Murdoch University, which is now fully accredited by Engineers Australia. In the early 2010s Martin combined his academic role with work in industry and spent five years as Principal Engineer Sustainability at ENV Australia, leading a number of commercial consultancy projects including several large-scale water efficiency behavioural change programs for the Water Corporation. Today, Martin is Academic Chair and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at Murdoch University in Western Australia.

Emeritus Professor Goen Ho joined Murdoch University in 1976, and helped establish the Environmental Science program at the university, the first in Australia. Goen is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a Chartered Professional Engineer. He is a Fellow of the International Water Association and has been active in the Association (2000-04 Chair of Specialist Group of Small Water Systems, 2005-07 Co-chair of the Asia Pacific Regional Council, 2002-10 Member of Strategic Council). In 2011 he received the Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Research Award for Distinguished and Sustained Achievement. He was Program Leader of Environmental Biotechnology at Murdoch University from 2011 to 2013. Goen retired as Professor of Environmental Engineering in July 2013 and was appointed Emeritus Professor.

Dr. Linda Li received her PhD degree in 2009 and then started her postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Monash University. She joined Murdoch University as a lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the end of 2011. Her current research interests include the development of advanced materials and membranes for wastewater treatment.

The World Health Organization estimates that globally one billion people are without access to safe water and two billion people without adequate sanitation. The health consequence of such a situation is very serious and demands urgent appropriate action.

The centralised system, which is still promoted all over the world, will not help in providing water and sanitation for all as it depends on huge financial and technological resources that are often not available. The International Conference on Decentralised Water and Wastewater Systems held in Fremantle, Western Australia in July 2006 (organised by the Environmental Technology Centre at Murdoch University) promoted decentralised systems as a means of solving this problem. All the papers submitted at the conference underwent a review process. This book brings together a selection of papers presented at the conference.

Onsite, small-scale and decentralised wastewater treatment systems are widely used around the world (for example serving a quarter of the population in the United States), and are perhaps symbolised by the septic tank and associated soak well or leach drain as used for domestic wastewater treatment in rural areas. More recent innovations have taken advantage of our growing understanding of the fundamental physical, chemical and biological processes of wastewater treatment. Innovation has also been driven by a desire to recycle the water and nutrients to achieve environmental sustainability. Onsite, small scale and decentralised systems assist with achieving the recycling objective. IWAﾒs 6th Specialised Conference on Small Water and Wastewater Systems and 1st Specialised Conference on Onsite Wastewater Treatment and Recycling drew well over two hundred delegates to discuss these issues, and from over 150 platform and poster papers 40 have been selected for these proceedings following peer review.

Water auditing is a method of quantifying water flows and quality in simple or complex systems, with a view to reducing water usage and often saving money on otherwise unnecessary water use. There is an increasing awareness around the globe of the centrality of water to our lives. This awareness crosses political and social boundaries. In many places people have difficult access to drinking water. Often it is polluted. Water auditing is a mechanism for conserving water, which will grow in significance in the future as demand for water increases.

Water is essential for all life forms. It is a fundamental resource necessary for socio-economic development and for ecological sustainability. Good quality water is becoming scarce due to population growth and associated industrial development and pollution particularly in towns and cities. It is timely that the sustainability and management of water resources is widely discussed noting that water can be used an unlimited number of times with proper treatment. The papers in Sustainability of Water Resources, were originally presented at a meeting at Murdoch University on 13-14 November 2002, where new and innovative methods of treatment, better understanding and assessment of resources and their supporting ecosystems, and proper management for conservation were explored.

Domestic wastewater reuse is currently not permitted anywhere in Australia but is widely supported by the community, promoted by researchers, and improvised by up to 20% of householders. Its widespread implementation will make an enormous contribution to the sustainability of water resources. Integrated with other strategies in the outdoor living environment of settlements in arid lands great benefit will be derived. This paper describes six options for wastewater reuse under research by the Remote Area Developments Group (RADG) at Murdoch University and case studies are given where productive use is being made for revegetation and food production strategies at household and community scales. Pollution control techniques, public health precautions and maintenance requirements are described. The special case of remote Aboriginal communities is explained where prototype systems have been installed by RADG to generate windbreaks and orchards. New Australian design standards and draft guidelines for domestic greywater reuse produced by the Western Australian state government agencies for mainstream communities are evaluated. It is recommended that dry composting toilets be coupled with domestic greywater reuse and the various types available in Australia are described. For situations where only the flushing toilet will suffice the unique “wet composting” system can be used and this also is described. A vision for household and community-scale on-site application is presented.

The deterioration of water quality and the consequence public health problems facing many communities worldwide have been recognised for sometime. The United Nations Water Decade (1981-1990) was a major initiative to address the need to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to the two-thirds world without access to these. These problems still exist due to the increasing world population, and the proportion of communities without adequate sanitation has remained at approximately two thirds. These problems are compounded by the rapid migration of rural population to the fringes of cities. This trend of urbanisation has been forecast to continue for sometime into the future. Communities growing rapidly around urban areas are also those with little resources and with low incomes.

Urban managers are faced with the problem of how to provide adequate wastewater and stormwater services, and how to allocate priorities with competing demands for other urban infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and schools. Communities themselves are aware on a daily basis of the lack of services and are similarly confronted by the problem of how to overcome them with very limited available resources within the community. Although these problems are severe in urban areas, many rural communities are also faced with poor or deteriorating sanitation facilities.

Developing countries experience the largest share of the problems described above. Countries in economic-transition also suffer from inadequate or deteriorating infrastructure needing restoration. Even in the developed countries questions have been asked as to whether the current way of providing wastewater and stormwater infrastructure is environmentally sustainable in the longer term.