Published! Research article on KPI's to evaluate treatment for resource recovery - Journal of Environmental Management
Project partner HZ University with valuable input from consortium partner University of Portsmouth composed a research article about the technical, environmental, economic and social key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to quantify the benefits and the risks of resource recovery.
A published success as a result of fruitful cooperation between the Nereus partners
The Nereus project consortium is beyond proud to announce that this week a research article by our partners has been published successfully in the Journal of Environmental Management.
Project partner HZ University with valuable input from consortium partner University of Portsmouth composed a research article about the
- technical
- environmental
- economic
- social
key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to quantify the benefits and the risks of resource recovery.
The article is available to read here.
Title
Mathematically formulated key performance indicators for design and evaluation of treatment trains for resource recovery from urban wastewater
Highlights
- Quantitative and consistent indicators for evaluating resource recovery is lacking.
- We assemble a set of social, economic, environmental and technical indicators.
- The indicators incorporate process, context, resource and legal characteristics.
- The incorporation of characteristics is built on mathematical formulations.
- The indicators also support model-based studies of resource recovery.
Abstract
While urban wastewater infrastructure is aging and no longer adequate, climate change and sustainability are urging the transition from pollution management to resource recovery. Lacking evidence-based quantitative evaluation of the potential benefits and consequences of resource recovery from wastewater hinders the negotiation amongst stakeholders and slows down the transition. This study proposes mathematical formulations for technical, environmental, economic, and social key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to quantify the benefits and the risks of resource recovery. The proposed formulations are derived from the literature and validated with stakeholders. Each KPI is mathematically formulated at treatment train level by considering: (1) the characteristics of individual unit processes (UPs) in the treatment train (TT), (2) the context in which the TT is installed, and (3) the resources to be recovered. The mathematical formulations of the KPIs proposed in this study enable a transparent, consistent and informative evaluation of existing treatment trains, as well as support the (computer aided) design of new ones. This could aid the transition from urban wastewater treatment to resource recovery from urban wastewater.