Abstract
Although reclaimed water for potable applications has many potential benefits, it poses concerns for chemical and microbial risks to consumers. We present a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) Monte Carlo framework to compare a de facto water reuse scenario (treated wastewater-impacted surface water) with four hypothetical Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) scenarios for Norovirus, Cryptosporidium, and Salmonella. Consumer microbial risks of surface source water quality (impacted by 0–100% treated wastewater effluent) were assessed. Additionally, we assessed risks for different blending ratios (0–100% surface water blended into advanced-treated DPR water) when source surface water consisted of 50% wastewater effluent. De facto reuse risks exceeded the yearly 10−4 infections risk benchmark while all modeled DPR risks were significantly lower. Contamination with 1% or more wastewater effluent in the source water, and blending 1% or more wastewater-impacted surface water into the advanced-treated DPR water drove the risk closer to the 10−4 benchmark. We demonstrate that de facto reuse by itself, or as an input into DPR, drives microbial risks more so than the advanced-treated DPR water. When applied using location-specific inputs, this framework can contribute to project design and public awareness campaigns to build legitimacy for DPR.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 635 |
Journal | International journal of environmental research and public health |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 13 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Blending
- Cryptosporidium
- Direct potable reuse
- Norovirus
- Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA)
- Reclaimed water
- Salmonella
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pollution
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis