IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i14p11133-d1196151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Quality of Treated Wastewater for Irrigation: A Case Study of Ain Sefra Wastewater Treatment Plant

Author

Listed:
  • Tayyib Moussaoui

    (Laboratory for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Zones, University Center of Naama; P.O. Box 66, Naama 45000, Algeria)

  • Abdessamed Derdour

    (Laboratory for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Zones, University Center of Naama; P.O. Box 66, Naama 45000, Algeria
    Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for Mechanical and Civil Structures, and Soil, University Center of Naama, P.O. Box 66, Naama 45000, Algeria)

  • Alia Hosni

    (Laboratory for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Zones, University Center of Naama; P.O. Box 66, Naama 45000, Algeria)

  • Manuel Ballesta-de los Santos

    (Research Group in Plant Production and Technology, Plant Sciences and Microbiology Department, Miguel Hernández University (UMH), Carretera de Beniel, Km 3.2, 03312 Orihuela, Spain)

  • Pilar Legua

    (Research Group in Plant Production and Technology, Plant Sciences and Microbiology Department, Miguel Hernández University (UMH), Carretera de Beniel, Km 3.2, 03312 Orihuela, Spain)

  • Miguel Ángel Pardo-Picazo

    (Department of Civil Engineering, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain)

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the water quality parameters in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Ain Sefra, southwestern Algeria. Various methods were employed to analyze the performance and suitability of the WWTP for irrigation. The results revealed effective removal of nitrates, with levels below the limit set for irrigation water. The dissolved oxygen content showed efficient biological processes and good degradation of organic matter. Phosphate levels were found to be within FAO and Algerian irrigation standards. However, elevated ammonia levels were observed, exceeding typical ranges for irrigation. The suitability of groundwater for irrigation was evaluated by calculating groundwater suitability indices. These indices categorized all samples as either excellent or good based on their Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR) and Kelly’s ratio. However, the sodium percentage values raised concerns about potential negative effects on the soil. Some samples were deemed unsuitable for irrigation because of high magnesium hazard and potential salinity values. These findings offer valuable insights into the performance and suitability of treated wastewater for irrigation in the Ain Sefra region. They can inform decision makers and stakeholders involved in agriculture and water management.

Suggested Citation

  • Tayyib Moussaoui & Abdessamed Derdour & Alia Hosni & Manuel Ballesta-de los Santos & Pilar Legua & Miguel Ángel Pardo-Picazo, 2023. "Assessing the Quality of Treated Wastewater for Irrigation: A Case Study of Ain Sefra Wastewater Treatment Plant," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-20, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11133-:d:1196151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11133/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11133/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeannie Sowers & Avner Vengosh & Erika Weinthal, 2011. "Climate change, water resources, and the politics of adaptation in the Middle East and North Africa," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 599-627, February.
    2. Joaquín Hernández Fernández & Heidis Cano & Yoleima Guerra & Esneyder Puello Polo & John Fredy Ríos-Rojas & Ricardo Vivas-Reyes & Juan Oviedo, 2022. "Identification and Quantification of Microplastics in Effluents of Wastewater Treatment Plant by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-10, April.
    3. Hamiche, Ait Mimoune & Stambouli, Amine Boudghene & Flazi, Samir, 2015. "A review on the water and energy sectors in Algeria: Current forecasts, scenario and sustainability issues," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 261-276.
    4. Abdessamed Derdour & Abderrazak Bouanani & Noureddine Kaid & Kanit Mukdasai & A. M. Algelany & Hijaz Ahmad & Younes Menni & Houari Ameur, 2022. "Groundwater Potentiality Assessment of Ain Sefra Region in Upper Wadi Namous Basin, Algeria Using Integrated Geospatial Approaches," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-20, April.
    5. Ramona Ciobanu & Carmen Teodosiu & Cecilia M. V. B. Almeida & Feni Agostinho & Biagio Fernando Giannetti, 2022. "Sustainability Analysis of a Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant through Emergy Evaluation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-19, May.
    6. Juan Jesús De la Torre Bayo & Jaime Martín Pascual & Juan Carlos Torres Rojo & Montserrat Zamorano Toro, 2022. "Waste to Energy from Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Science Mapping," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-25, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laid Bouchaala & Nabil Charchar & Nedjoud Grara & Ilham Ben Amor & Soumeia Zeghoud & Hadia Hemmami & Moussa Houhamdi & Agnieszka Szparaga & Otilia Cristina Murariu & Gianluca Caruso & Stefano Bellucci, 2025. "Assessing the Efficiency of Phragmites australis in Wastewater Treatment as a Natural Approach to Water Quality Improvement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Reza Naimaee & Abbas Kiani & Sina Jarahizadeh & Seyed Babak Haji Seyed Asadollah & Pablo Melgarejo & Antonio Jodar-Abellan, 2024. "Long-Term Water Quality Monitoring: Using Satellite Images for Temporal and Spatial Monitoring of Thermal Pollution in Water Resources," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-20, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haddad, Brahim & Liazid, Abdelkrim & Ferreira, Paula, 2017. "A multi-criteria approach to rank renewables for the Algerian electricity system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 462-472.
    2. Ali-Toudert, Fazia & Weidhaus, Juliane, 2017. "Numerical assessment and optimization of a low-energy residential building for Mediterranean and Saharan climates using a pilot project in Algeria," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 327-346.
    3. Heba Akasha & Omid Ghaffarpasand & Francis D. Pope, 2023. "Climate Change, Air Pollution and the Associated Burden of Disease in the Arabian Peninsula and Neighbouring Regions: A Critical Review of the Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, February.
    4. Qianjin Dong & Xu Zhang & Yalin Chen & Debin Fang, 2019. "Dynamic Management of a Water Resources-Socioeconomic-Environmental System Based on Feedbacks Using System Dynamics," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(6), pages 2093-2108, April.
    5. Salih Muhammad Awadh & Heba Al-Mimar & Zaher Mundher Yaseen, 2021. "Groundwater availability and water demand sustainability over the upper mega aquifers of Arabian Peninsula and west region of Iraq," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-21, January.
    6. Bader Alhafi Alotaibi & Weizhou Xu & Ashfaq Ahmad Shah & Wahid Ullah, 2024. "Exploring Climate-Induced Agricultural Risk in Saudi Arabia: Evidence from Farming Communities of Medina Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-21, May.
    7. Bey, M. & Hamidat, A. & Benyoucef, B. & Nacer, T., 2016. "Viability study of the use of grid connected photovoltaic system in agriculture: Case of Algerian dairy farms," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 333-345.
    8. Endale Siyoum Demissie & Demisachew Yilma Gashaw & Andarge Alaro Altaye & Solomon S. Demissie & Gebiaw T. Ayele, 2023. "Groundwater Recharge Estimation in Upper Gelana Watershed, South-Western Main Ethiopian Rift Valley," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-21, January.
    9. Aisha Aziz & Kashif Akram & Muhammad Abrar ul Haq & Iqbal Thonse Hawaldar & Mustafa Raza Rabbani, 2022. "Examining the Role of Clean Drinking Water Plants in Mitigating Drinking Water-Induced Morbidity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-21, August.
    10. Garcia, X. & Pargament, D., 2015. "Reusing wastewater to cope with water scarcity: Economic, social and environmental considerations for decision-making," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 154-166.
    11. Peyman Arjomandi A. & Masoud Yazdanpanah & Akbar Shirzad & Nadejda Komendantova & Erfan Kameli & Mahdi Hosseinzadeh & Erfan Razavi, 2023. "Institutional Trust and Cognitive Motivation toward Water Conservation in the Face of an Environmental Disaster," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-21, January.
    12. Dinko Hanaan Dinko, 2022. "Scale matters: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Freshwater Conflicts from 1900-2019," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(1), pages 219-233, January.
    13. Erika Weinthal & Neda Zawahri & Jeannie Sowers, 2015. "Securitizing Water, Climate, and Migration in Israel, Jordan, and Syria," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 293-307, September.
    14. Aliaa Dirani & Gumataw Kifle Abebe & Rachel A. Bahn & Giuliano Martiniello & Isam Bashour, 2021. "Exploring climate change adaptation practices and household food security in the Middle Eastern context: a case of small family farms in Central Bekaa, Lebanon," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 1029-1047, August.
    15. Ferreira, João J. & Lopes, João M. & Gomes, Sofia & Nogueira, Elisabete & Dabić, Marina, 2024. "Nature's safecrackers: Decoding substitutability and protecting natural capital in innovation ecosystems SSA and MENA regions," Innovation and Green Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(4).
    16. Dina Najjar & Boubaker Dhehibi & Aden Aw-Hassan & Abderrahim Bentaibi, 2017. "Climate Change, Gender, Decision-Making Power, and Migration into the Saiss Region of Morocco," Working Papers 1102, Economic Research Forum, revised 06 Jan 2017.
    17. Ghanian, Mansour & M. Ghoochani, Omid & Dehghanpour, Mojtaba & Taqipour, Milad & Taheri, Fatemeh & Cotton, Matthew, 2020. "Understanding farmers’ climate adaptation intention in Iran: A protection-motivation extended model," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    18. Amit Tubi & Joe Williams, 2021. "Beyond binary outcomes in climate adaptation: The illustrative case of desalination," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(2), March.
    19. Encarnación Gil-Meseguer & Miguel Borja Bernabé-Crespo & José María Gómez-Espín, 2019. "Recycled Sewage - A Water Resource for Dry Regions of Southeastern Spain," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(2), pages 725-737, January.
    20. Sedighe Pakmehr & Masoud Yazdanpanah & Masoud Baradaran, 2021. "Explaining farmers’ response to climate change-induced water stress through cognitive theory of stress: an Iranian perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 5776-5793, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11133-:d:1196151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.