RT Journal Article
T1 Assessing changes in eco-productivity of wastewater treatment plants: The role of costs, pollutant removal efficiency, and greenhouse gas emissions
A1 Gemar-Castillo, Germán
A1 Gómez-Núñez, Trinidad
A1 Molinos-Senante, María
A1 Caballero-Fernández, Rafael Enrique
A1 Sala-Garrido, Ramón
K1 Plantas depuradoras de agua - Aspectos ambientales
AB Improving eco-efficiency of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has been identified as being essential forachieving urban sustainability. Several previous papers have evaluated the eco-efficiency of WWTPs using dataenvelopment analysis (DEA) models. However, those models provided only a static assessment in that theyignored possible fluctuations over time within each plant. To overcome this temporal limitation, this paperevaluates dynamic eco-efficiency (changes in eco-productivity over time) of WWTPs using the dynamic weightedRussell directional distance model (WRDDM). This approach allows one to obtain an eco-productivity changeindex for each major component of the WRDDM model (costs, pollutants removal, and greenhouse gas emissions).Our results illustrate that although eco-productivity improved in half of the WWTPs we assessed, therewas still potential for improving some eco-efficiency components. Moreover, operational costs and greenhousegases emissions were the main drivers reducing eco-productivity. This paper demonstrates the importance ofevaluating change in eco-productivity over time and in identifying the drivers associated with those changes,both of which can be used to support decision-making focused on the sustainability of WWTPs
PB Elsevier
YR 2018
FD 2018-03
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/29587
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/29587
LA eng
NO Gémar, G., Gómez, T., Molinos-Senante, M., Caballero, R., & Sala-Garrido, R. (2018). Assessing changes in eco-productivity of wastewater treatment plants: The role of costs, pollutant removal efficiency, and greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 69, 24-31.
NO This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education [ECO2016-76567-C4-4-R]; the Junta de Andalucía [SEJ417]; and Conicyt [Fondecyt (11160031)].
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 19 ene 2026