Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability: A three city case study

Jacelyn Rice; Amber Wutich; Dave White; Paul Westerhoff

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007

Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability

A three city case study

Jacelyn Rice, Amber Wutich, Dave White, Paul Westerhoff

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Increases in water treatment technology have made water recycling a viable engineering solution to water supply limitations. In spite of this, such water recycling schemes have often been halted by lack of public acceptance. Previous studies have captured the public's attitudes regarding planned reuse schemes, but here we focus on unplanned reuse (i.e. de facto reuse), present in many cities across the U.S. We performed a survey in three metropolitan areas, Atlanta, GA (N = 421), Philadelphia, PA (N = 490), and Phoenix, AZ (N = 418), to assess basic perceptions of treated wastewater occurrence and its acceptance in the public water supply. These perceptions were then coupled by estimates of the actual extent of occurrence in the corresponding cities. The key results are that (1) de facto reuse occurs at rates across the three cities higher than what is perceived; (2) roughly 25% of respondents perceive de facto reuse to occur in their home tap water; and (3) respondents who perceived de facto reuse to occur at their tap were ten times more likely to have a high level of acceptance for de facto reuse in their home tap.

Original language	English (US)
Journal	Sustainable Cities and Society
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007
State	Accepted/In press - Nov 4 2015

Fingerprint

Water recycling

Wastewater

Water supply

wastewater

water

acceptance

recycling

water supply

water management

public attitude

Water treatment

metropolitan area

water treatment

engineering

agglomeration area

public

city

Water

lack

rate

Keywords

De facto reuse
Public acceptance
Wastewater reuse
Yuck factor

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geography, Planning and Development
Transportation
Civil and Structural Engineering
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Cite this

Rice, J., Wutich, A., White, D., & Westerhoff, P. (Accepted/In press). Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability: A three city case study. Sustainable Cities and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007

Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability : A three city case study. / Rice, Jacelyn; Wutich, Amber ; White, Dave ; Westerhoff, Paul.

In: Sustainable Cities and Society, 04.11.2015.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Rice, J, Wutich, A , White, D & Westerhoff, P 2015, 'Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability: A three city case study', Sustainable Cities and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007

Rice J, Wutich A , White D , Westerhoff P. Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability: A three city case study. Sustainable Cities and Society. 2015 Nov 4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007

Rice, Jacelyn ; Wutich, Amber ; White, Dave ; Westerhoff, Paul. / Comparing actual de facto wastewater reuse and its public acceptability : A three city case study. In: Sustainable Cities and Society. 2015.

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Access to Document

10.1016/j.scs.2016.06.007