Simulation and visualization of material flows in sanitation systems for streamlined sustainability assessment

New and alternative sanitation systems are increasingly discussed and find their way into implementation. However, discussions on sanitation concepts often are held in a rather emotional way. Furthermore, not all the available sanitation concepts might be known to the decision maker. The work presen...

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Publié dans:Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research. - 1986. - 79(2019), 10 vom: 11. Mai, Seite 1966-1976
Auteur principal: Schütze, M (Auteur)
Autres auteurs: Wriege-Bechtold, A, Zinati, T, Söbke, H, Wißmann, I, Schulz, M, Veser, S, Londong, J, Barjenbruch, M, Alex, J
Format: Article en ligne
Langue:English
Publié: 2019
Accès à la collection:Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research
Sujets:Journal Article
Description
Résumé:New and alternative sanitation systems are increasingly discussed and find their way into implementation. However, discussions on sanitation concepts often are held in a rather emotional way. Furthermore, not all the available sanitation concepts might be known to the decision maker. The work presented here attempts to contribute to a good discussion and decision making process by compiling available technologies, by defining easy-to-implement criteria for a sustainability assessment method and by integrating these results into a simulation tool which allows to visualize the related resource fluxes (e.g. those on nutrients, such as N, P and K) and to analyse different sanitation options with regard to their capital and operational costs and with regard to environmental impact criteria such as greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst the calculations are to be considered as being approximate in their nature (due to uncertainties or lack of suitable input data), this tool allows the planners, with sometimes little modelling experience, to consider the characteristics of sanitation systems. Whilst starting from earlier work, such as Eawag's Sanitation Compendium and work on material flow analysis, work described in this contribution merges resource flux modelling, easy-to-use simulation and visualization and methods of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. The simulation tool is freely available on https://www.ifak.eu/en/products/sampsons
Description:Date Completed 05.09.2019
Date Revised 15.12.2020
published: Print
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:0273-1223
DOI:10.2166/wst.2019.199