Whenever there is a water shortage, two issues are always brought up for discussion: finding more water sources while cutting consumption, and allocating resources among users. These issues are closely related, but unfortunately they are seldom considered in a comprehensive manner.
Within the industrial sector, which is most directly and seriously affected by water shortages, the water reclamation rate has increased significantly from less than 50 percent in 2001 to more than 70 percent today.
However, in the face of an unprecedented shortage, it is necessary to use water even more sparingly, as if wringing it from a towel, but the higher the reclamation rate, the higher the unit cost of reclaimed water, with a resultant rise in industrial production costs.
Although the industrial sector has made great efforts in this respect, when it comes to the national water allocation ratio, industrial consumption only accounts for about 10 percent, with everyday household, office and commercial use accounting for 20 percent, while agriculture accounts for 70 percent.
Industrial, agricultural and everyday use each have their own needs, so it is not wise to rashly call for adjusting water consumption ratios. Nonetheless, it should be possible to make adjustments to the sources and supply of the water they use.
Although many wastewater treatment plants built by the Construction and Planning Agency across the country are called “water resource centers,” and have a daily treatment capacity of more than 3 million tonnes, the reclamation rate is still low. The key reasons for this include not only the high cost of reclamation, but also the lack of a breakthrough in the reuse of reclaimed water.
The former problem involves the price gap between water rates and those of reclaimed water, which requires a policy decision to narrow the divide by raising water rates. Meanwhile, the latter problem is clearly another major obstacle.
If wastewater from public treatment plants is to be reused for industrial purposes, it will require additional advanced treatment units, depending on the water quality standards of the factories, which will increase costs considerably. It also involves laying pipelines over considerable distances, which is difficult. For this reason, treated wastewater is limited to uses such as landscaping, watering plants and washing streets.
However, if wastewater from public treatment plants is reclaimed for use in agricultural irrigation, the cost of treatment will be much lower than for industrial use. It also allows some of the water that would otherwise be used for agriculture to be kept in reservoirs for everyday and industrial uses.
The Council of Agriculture’s water quality standards for irrigation mainly regulate the limits for electrical conductivity and heavy metals. Treated water discharged from public treatment plants almost fully complies with these standards. This makes it much easier to use this water for irrigation than in factories, which can only be done after adding a lot of advanced treatment units.
If reclaimed water is used for irrigation, nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, which are needed for farmland, do not have to be removed completely, which removes some difficulty from the process and saves money.
The Environmental Protection Administration has in the past few years heavily promoted the return of solid and liquid digestate from livestock wastewater treated by anaerobic fermentation to farmland for reuse, which not only saves water resources, but can reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, with fruitful results. Therefore, drainage from public treatment plants can be used in the same way.
Unlike the water discharged from sewage treatment plants in industrial zones, where it might not be easy to control the concentrations of heavy metals, drainage wastewater treatment facilities do not have this problem. The only issue to consider is the relatively high electrical conductivity of the wastewater, but the effect of electrical conductivity is that it might cause soil salinity to increase, rather than affect crops.
However, extreme weather has in the past few years caused annual rainfall to fluctuate sharply, with dramatic changes in water volume, and alternating shortages and floods, so in the long term it should be possible to neutralize excess salinity and not accumulate too much over a long period.
If the water supply were always abundant, the government could of course require stricter standards of water quality, but when there is such a serious shortage, it can only learn from the old saying: “When there is no rice, eat grated yam instead.”
It is better to irrigate farmland with recycled water that might have a slightly higher electrical conductivity than to let it lie fallow due to lack of water.
In the past, many regional irrigation associations were not willing to accept the use of reclaimed water for irrigation, but as they have become government departments, they are likely to be more cooperative. Facing the most serious shortage in years, all agencies should set aside departmentalism to overcome difficulties together.
If agricultural authorities can accept the return of treated wastewater for use on farmland, as well as adding nutrients to the soil, it will also reduce the overall demand, thus relieving the pressure on water for industrial and everyday use. It would be a good case of killing several birds with one stone.
Chen Wen-ching is executive director of the Formosa Association of Resource Recycling.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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