IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5412.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Improving wastewater use in agriculture : an emerging priority

Author

Listed:
  • Scheierling, Susanne M.
  • Bartone, Carl
  • Mara, Duncan D.
  • Drechsel, Pay

Abstract

Wastewater use in agriculture is a growing practice worldwide. Drivers include increasing water stress, in part due to climate change; increasing urbanization and growing wastewater flows; and more urban households engaged in agricultural activities. The problem with this trend is that in low-income countries, but also in many middle-income countries, it either involves the direct use of untreated wastewater or the indirect use of polluted waters from rivers that receive untreated urban discharges. This poses substantial risks, in particular microbial risks to public health. To address these risks, the World Health Organization in 2006 issued new guidelines for the safe use of wastewater.This paper aims to highlight the growing importance of improving wastewater use in agriculture across the spectrum from lower to high-income countries. It presents an innovative approach linking key issues related to different aspects of wastewater irrigation to a country’s level of economic development. Based on data presented in the World Bank’s World Development Report, it differentiates between four country income levels to create a typology for analyzing current issues, trends, and priorities for improving agricultural wastewater use with a focus on reducing the risks to public health. It also presents the basic principles of the new 2006 World Health Organization Guidelines, and how to apply them. Beyond regulatory aspects, the paper also discusses other aspects that are important for achieving a more integrated approach to agricultural wastewater use, including institutional/planning, technological, economic/financial, and social issues. Finally, the paper provides recommendations for moving the wastewater irrigation agenda forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Scheierling, Susanne M. & Bartone, Carl & Mara, Duncan D. & Drechsel, Pay, 2010. "Improving wastewater use in agriculture : an emerging priority," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5412, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/09/07/000158349_20100907090249/Rendered/PDF/WPS5412.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Amponsah, Owusu & Vigre, Håkan & Schou, Torben Wilde & Boateng, Ethel Seiwaa & Braimah, Imoro & Abaidoo, Robert Clement, 2015. "Assessing low quality water use policy framework: Case study from Ghana," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-15.
    2. Amerasinghe, Priyani H. & Bhardwaj, Rajendra Mohan & Scott, Christopher A. & Jella, Kiran & Marshall, Fiona, 2013. "Urban wastewater and agricultural reuse challenges in India," IWMI Reports 147104, International Water Management Institute.
    3. Amerasinghe, Priyani H. & Bhardwaj, Rajendra Mohan & Scott, C. & Jella, Kiran & Marshall, Fiona, 2013. "Urban wastewater and agricultural reuse challenges in India," IWMI Research Reports 158342, International Water Management Institute.
    4. Nicoleta Ungureanu & Valentin Vlăduț & Gheorghe Voicu, 2020. "Water Scarcity and Wastewater Reuse in Crop Irrigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-18, October.
    5. Ben Brahim-Neji, Hella & Ruiz-Villaverde, Alberto & González-Gómez, Francisco, 2014. "Decision aid supports for evaluating agricultural water reuse practices in Tunisia: The Cebala perimeter," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 113-121.
    6. Folake Monsurat Babalola & Lena Breitenmoser & Claire Furlong & Paul Campling & Christine Maria Hooijmans, 2023. "Occupational Health Risk Assessment for Wastewater Treatment and Reuse in Kanpur, India," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(12), pages 1-16, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Water and Industry; Wastewater Treatment; Sanitation and Sewerage; Water Supply and Systems; Water Conservation;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wbk:wbrwps:5412. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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.