Water Reuse and Sustainability

Water reuse simply is the use of reclaimed water for a direct beneficial purpose in various sectors from home to industry and agriculture. For a number of semi-arid regions and islands, water reuse provides a major portion of the irrigation water. In addition, the reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation and industrial purposes can be used as strategy to release freshwater for domestic use, and to improve the quality of river waters used for abstraction of drinking water. Specific water reuse applications meet the water quality objectives. Water quality standards and guidelines which are related to irrigation and industrial water reuse are described in this chapter. Other reuse consumptions such as urban, recreational and environmental are also discussed.