Abstract:
Various technological alternatives for waste water treatment are available ranging from
conventional methods to advance treatment methods. Selection process often diddles
decision makers specially when multiple factors in selection of appropriate technology need
to be considered. In this study, a holistic decision making approach has been developed for
sustainable development considering multiple factors ranging from economic parameters to
social and environmental parameters. In this study, Capital cost, operation and maintenance
cost, land requirement depicts the economic concern of selection procedure and Global
warming potential, Eutrophication potential depicts environmental concern and to take into
account social concern robustness of system and sustainability criteria have been
incorporated. Suitability of any technology largely depends upon the location of the plant,
land availability and objectives of the treatment etc. or in other words it depends on the
scenario for which plant need to be constructed. So for this aspect to take into account four
scenario have been formulated to capture regional and local societal priorities of suburban
and urban areas.
Three most commonly used waste water treatment technologies viz. Sequential batch reactor
(SBR), Activated sludge process (ASP) and Up flow sludge blanket- Final polishing pond
(UASB-FPP) have been evaluated in this study. Commonly used multiple attribute decision
making approach TOPSIS has been selected for ranking the alternatives. Among the three
technologies considered for the assessment, SBR was identified as the most suitable
alternative for all four scenarios not only because SBR has low land requirements and having
less life cycle cost per MLD compared to other two technologies but SBR produces
considerably good effluent quality also.
