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Wastewater Generation Model to Predict Impacts of Urine Separation on Wastewater Treatment Plants
(2023)
Wastewater treatment plants are under increasing pressure to enhance resource efficiency and reduce emissions into water bodies. Separation of urine within the catchment area may be an alternative to mitigate the need for costly expansions of central wastewater treatment plant. While previous investigations assumed a spatially uniform implementation of urine separation across the catchment area, the present study introduces a modelling framework which allows to determine the influence of targeted urine separation on the operation and emissions of central wastewater treatment plants. The framework includes an adapted stochastic wastewater generation model, the Stormwater Management Model, and Activated Sludge Model No. 3 with Bio-P module (SIMBA#). The entire application is embedded in the R programming language. The model is validated by an extensive sampling and measurement campaign. Preliminary results based on observed and simulated wastewater generation and transport for a catchment area of 436 residents indicate the suitability of the model for wastewater generation and transport modelling, but also show further need for calibration.