Assessment of the Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant's Effluents Based on Water and Fertilizer Values

One of the major aspects of water resources management in the arid and semi-arid regions is the use of unconventional water sources such as effluents from wastewater treatment plants. As a result, assessment of water supply potential as well as fertilizer values of these unconventional water sources is an important issue in any comprehensive resource management program. In this study, the water supply potential and fertilizer values of the effluents from the City of Mashhad wastewater treatment plants (Olang, Parkand-Abad #1 & Parkand-Abad #2) was assessed based on: 1) the effluent's nitrogen and phosphorus contents, 2) common types of agricultural crops in the region (wheat, barley, tomato), and 3) the crops water and fertilizer requirements over their growing season. The results of this research indicated that the water supply potential of the effluents from above mentioned wastewater treatment plants for irrigation of wheat, barley and tomato are equivalent to 962, 870 and 729 hectares, respectively. Moreover, based on the results of the integrated model used in this research, the use of the effluents can provide 87.2, 74.4 and 133.6 kg.ha-1 available nitrogen and 36.7, 31.7 and 62.0 kg.ha-1 phosphorus for wheat, barley and tomato, respectively. In terms of economic assessments, the water value of the effluents corresponded to 89.6×106 Rials for wheat, 67.4×106 Rials for barley, and 125.0×106 Rials for tomato. In terms of fertilizer value, the corresponding economic assessment represented values of 1.97×109, 1.44×109, and 4.68×106 Rials. In general, the net results of the economic analysis performed indicated that the use of the effluents from the City of Mashhad wastewater treatment plants in agriculture can reduce the cost of production by 33, 31 and 28 percent for wheat, barley and tomato, respectively.