Impacts on Rural Wastewater Systems in Subarctic Regions due to Changes in Inputs from Households

Abstract

The use of water-saving appliances and heat exchangers is becoming increasingly popular to decrease water consumption and recover energy from preheated water. However, such in-household changes can bring particular implications for subarctic rural areas, in terms of solids deposition in sewers and drops in performance of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), because these are already experiencing diminishing wastewater flows due to depopulation and seasonal dips in wastewater temperature resulting from infiltration into sewers. Hence, this study has considered two communities in Sweden, postulating three different cases with various scales of retrofitting and usage. The results indicate that the decrease in in-pipe velocities when all households are retrofitted with water-saving appliances could be counteracted by sewer relining, but not by the inclusion of a conventional estimate of infiltration. However, for the case in which retrofitting was combined with decreased usage of the appliances, the decrease in self-cleansing capacity could not be counteracted. The retrofitting of heat exchangers under shower trays in all households did not have a significant effect on treatment processes at the WWTP.