Al-Ismaili Abdulrahim M, Ahmed Mushtaque, Al-Busaidi Ahmed, Al-Adawi Seif, Tandlich Roman, Al-Amri Mohammed
Department of Soils, Water and Agricultural Engineering, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box: 34, Al-Khod, 123, Muscat, Oman.
Faculty of Pharmacy, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2017 May;24(15):13650-13658. doi: 10.1007/s11356-017-8963-z. Epub 2017 Apr 10.
The use of treated grey water (GW) for home gardens, peri-urban agriculture and landscaping is becoming popular in many water stressed countries such as Oman. This study aims to investigate the treatment efficacy, health and chemical concerns, cost-benefits and maintenance protocol of a GW treatment system as well as the effect of irrigation with GW on crop yield. Therefore, a decentralized homemade GW treatment system was installed in a newly constructed house in Muscat, Oman and studied over a 2-year period. The treated GW was found to be suitable for irrigation as per Omani standards. GW when mixed with kitchen effluent substituted the use of nutrient supplements for plants and did not show any harmful chemical or biological contamination. The capital cost of the system was around US $980, and the annual operating cost was US $78 with annual income and savings from the system being around US $572 indicating a payback period of nearly 2 years. It was found that the system required simple but regular maintenance particularly cleaning of the top layer of the filter. It can be concluded from this study that such a GW system should be technically, economically and environmentally feasible in Oman. Also, wider acceptance by the general public to the idea of GW reuse will help in mitigating the water shortage problem of the country to some extent.
在阿曼等许多水资源紧张的国家，将处理后的中水用于家庭花园、城郊农业和景观美化正变得越来越普遍。本研究旨在调查中水（GW）处理系统的处理效果、健康和化学问题、成本效益及维护方案，以及用中水灌溉对作物产量的影响。因此，在阿曼马斯喀特的一栋新建房屋中安装了一个分散式自制中水（GW）处理系统，并进行了为期两年的研究。根据阿曼标准，处理后的中水被认为适合用于灌溉。当与厨房废水混合时，中水替代了植物营养补充剂的使用，且未显示出任何有害的化学或生物污染。该系统的资本成本约为980美元（美国），年运营成本为78美元（美国），该系统的年收入和储蓄约为572美元（美国），这表明投资回收期约为两年。研究发现，该系统需要简单但定期的维护，特别是对过滤器顶层的清洁。从这项研究可以得出结论，这样的中水（GW）系统在阿曼在技术、经济和环境方面应该是可行的。此外，公众对中水回用理念的更广泛接受将有助于在一定程度上缓解该国的水资源短缺问题。
