Wastewater reuse potential analysis: implications for China's water resources management

It has been recognized that wastewater reuse or reclamation serves as an efficient and valuable way to cope with the scarcity of water resources and severity of water pollution. This paper presents the systematic framework of wastewater reuse potential estimation. Based on the regional disparities in China, a linear programming optimization model is developed to explore the potential wastewater reuse quantities, under physical and economic constraints. Sensitivity analysis and Robust Counterpart (RC) optimization are performed to discuss the influences of key parameters and the reuse quantity's decision making under uncertainty. Based on the model, effectiveness of different policy scenarios of water price changes are simulated and evaluated, providing information regarding China's water and wastewater management. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.