Agricultural wastewater reuse is becoming a very common practice especially in arid and semi-arid regions. In the Southern Italy, the problem of desertification, increased over the past several years, makes the wastewater reuse a topic for research. Nevertheless, it is essential to consider public health protection and agricultural wastewater reuse integration into a complete land and water management plan, in order to evaluate its economic and environmental suitability. In this paper geographical information systems (G.I.S.) and multi-criteria analysis have been integrated to obtain a map of land suitability for irrigation with reclaimed wastewater. Seven criteria (six factors and one constraint) have been evaluated. The proposed approach is based on the integration of the Food Agricultural Organisation land evaluation for irrigated agriculture (FAO, 1985) parameters and other environmental and economic factors, such as wastewater treatment plants, urbanized areas proximity, depth of water table, etc. Suitability analysis has been conducted by using a fuzzy membership classification approach, and by considering the factors spatial distribution variation during the year. Results shows that the proposed methodology of multicriteria analysis gives an useful tool to support wastewater reuse planning, with the simultaneous consideration of all the economic, environmental and agricultural criteria.
Agricultural wastewater reuse planning by using GIS and multicriteria analysis
CANIANI, Donatella;MANCINI, Ignazio Marcello;MASI, Salvatore;SOLE, Aurelia;
2003-01-01
Abstract
Agricultural wastewater reuse is becoming a very common practice especially in arid and semi-arid regions. In the Southern Italy, the problem of desertification, increased over the past several years, makes the wastewater reuse a topic for research. Nevertheless, it is essential to consider public health protection and agricultural wastewater reuse integration into a complete land and water management plan, in order to evaluate its economic and environmental suitability. In this paper geographical information systems (G.I.S.) and multi-criteria analysis have been integrated to obtain a map of land suitability for irrigation with reclaimed wastewater. Seven criteria (six factors and one constraint) have been evaluated. The proposed approach is based on the integration of the Food Agricultural Organisation land evaluation for irrigated agriculture (FAO, 1985) parameters and other environmental and economic factors, such as wastewater treatment plants, urbanized areas proximity, depth of water table, etc. Suitability analysis has been conducted by using a fuzzy membership classification approach, and by considering the factors spatial distribution variation during the year. Results shows that the proposed methodology of multicriteria analysis gives an useful tool to support wastewater reuse planning, with the simultaneous consideration of all the economic, environmental and agricultural criteria.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
