Development of a multi-function software decision support tool for the promotion of the safe reuse of treated urban wastewater

Decision-making in environmental projects can be complex principally due to the inherent existence of trade-offs between socio-political, environmental and economic factors. This is why the MEDAWARE project which is an EU MEDA Water project (ME8/AIDCO/2001/0515/59341-P033) has focused its aims on the development of a software tool able to apply a scoring system for existing wastewater facilities based on the potential safe reuse of the final effluent. The scope of this work is to present the multi-criteria analysis user friendly software that has been developed. The tool is able to guide the responsible authorities to the most efficient solutions in terms of health and safety for the agricultural reuse of the produced effluent as well as to help them undertake actions that can be sustainable. The input data for the specific model are quite simple and can be easily collected (e.g. data concerning the population served by the facility, the possibilities for agricultural reuse of the water in the area, specific requirements or preferences on cultural, economical, technological or social issues), while the outcome is the ranking of the alternative scenarios and the suggestion of specific processes and treatment systems.