Proposed

The proposed ARW aims to bring together the scientists from various NATO and NATO partner countries in order to discuss recent advances in the field of municipal and industrial water supply and wastewater treatment. This event would be especially focused on the issues related to lowering the risk of failure and malfunctioning of the water supply/wastewater treatment systems, by application of advanced methods of the water treatment, rational water management aiming to enhance environmental sustainability, and also by considering other important issues in this field.

Background

Stable, safe, secure and readily available water supply is one of the key factors, which ensure a good level of the public health, safe and stable society, and improvement of the living standards. Scientific assessments show that about 80 % of diseases and one third of the total death toll in the developing countries are caused by the low quality of the drinking water. Other countries are also suffering because of water shortages and insufficient quality of the drinking water. Many rivers in Europe and in other parts of the world are significantly polluted by insufficiently treated or untreated wastewater discharge. This causes low quality of the drinking water in the downstream regions, increased cost of its treatment and production and, also serious impacts on aquatic organisms, including fish populations. Therefore, rational treatment of the wastewater is a very topical issue because this point source of pollution is gaining more and more on importance especially in highly urbanized areas. Reclamation and reuse of various industrial wastewaters and greywater is a promising way for diminishing consequences of the wastewater discharges into the environment.
Water-transmitted diseases can seriously undermine regional security and economic development and even provoke social conflicts. On other hand, many of the water supply problems can be solved, or at least partly mitigated, through relatively inexpensive but still quite technologically effective solutions related to water management/distribution and wastewater treatment (especially in the regions where local population uses mostly septic tanks or cesspools).
This ARW will strive to answer the following challenges:

• Environment and public health protection through the complex and multipurpose use of the available water resources, and effective treatment of greywater.
• Wider involvement of the communities and local authorities in water management, water resources use and improvement of the sanitary conditions;
• More effective financial management in the water treatment, water distribution and wastewater management.

Besides that, it is very important to address the following problems:

• Effective protection of the aquifer regions and their complete separation (isolation) from the landfill areas;
• Wider collection of the municipal greywater in centralized sewage systems, which can ensure better treatment at local wastewater treatment plants;
• Design and construction of separate drainage and stormwater collection systems (“separate” means isolation from the regular greywater sewage system);
• Discussion of possible ways of reuse and recycling of some categories of greywater and/or stormwater just near the points of collection. This means possible uses of such subpotable water for landscape irrigation, industrial supply and other.
• Control of transmission of pharmaceutical, personal care products and some other chemical agents through the water cycle

Therefore, the main output of the ARW will consist in exchange of views between many scientists and water supply and treatment specialists. This should give the scientists a wider understanding of possible solutions, which are needed in their home countries. Potential end-users of the ARW’s results and conclusions can be significantly extended through publication of the workshop proceedings in a specialized scientific volume.