Abstract
Although reclaimed water—municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent—can serve as a locally sustainable alternative water resource, this additional consumptive use of reclaimed water may cause impacts downstream. This paper seeks to quantitatively assess these impacts by employing scenario analysis coupled with a two-sample -test to evaluate the statistical significance of streamflow alteration. Further, the potential for lower volumes of streamflow is linked to impacts on downstream stakeholders through the use of stakeholder performance metrics. To demonstrate the applicability of this approach, two diverse regions are evaluated: (1) the Illinois River downstream from the greater Chicago, Illinois, area, and (2) the Middle Rio Grande River downstream from Albuquerque, New Mexico. In Illinois, impacts to barge transportation are marginal and decrease with distance downstream of effluent consumption. In the Rio Grande, impacts to the Rio Grande silvery minnow worsen downstream such that a proposed consumption would be unlikely to be established under federal regulations. The extent of downstream impacts is important in legal and policy contexts regarding the sustainability of reclaimed water projects.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available in the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/BrendanCUBoulder/Downstream-Effects-of-Reclaimed-Water-Consumption.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Water Energy Nexus Interdisciplinary Research Theme, a research initiative from the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science, as well as the Illinois Water Resources Center. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback, Ben Foster for his discussion on barge transportation along the Illinois River, and William Raseman for his support with data analysis. B.P., Z.A.B., J.R.K., and A.S.S. formulated the study and wrote the manuscript. B.P. compiled data, performed statistical tests, created figures and maps, and analyzed results for the New Mexico case study. Z.A.B. compiled data, performed statistical tests, created figures and maps, and analyzed results for the Illinois case study. J.R.K. and A.S.S. supervised the research.
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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 5 • May 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 5, 2019
Accepted: Sep 21, 2020
Published online: Mar 8, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Aug 8, 2021
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