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Context and challenges

The management and reuse of urban wastewater must go beyond the treatment of water and recycling in an industrial context or use for irrigation on farms. If wastewater is to be incorporated into urban ecosystems, the entire small water cycle needs to be redesigned, from identifying all available resources in a territory to characterising all uses and their associated constraints to all the socio-technical systems that allow water to be treated, transported, stocked and (re)distributed. The cities of tomorrow will be home to the vast majority of the70% of the world’s population, and therefore cities will be where the majority of wastewater will be produced. But current urban metabolism mobilises production zones sometimes in cities’ peripheral areas, and most often in rural areas, far from urban centres.

While support for the development of urban farms to make cities more resilient in the face of global shifts (relocation of production and making cities greener) is promising, it has its limits. Re-using wastewater is a major lever to help rise to the challenges linked to the changes currently underway. Its central spot in the water-energy-matter-environment nexus makes water an essential component of the bioeconomy in urban territories.

Goals

The consortium ReuseInCities strives to adopt this systemic approach, under the regulatory, socio-economic, health and environmental constraints that the network is designed to support. It is inseparable both from the territory involved, which must be described in terms of the potential for implementing a new management of water flows and/or the associated nutrients, and players in the zone who must be mobilised to co-construct feasibility conditions for a circular water economy in their territory. Strategies for local, or so-called “short” circuits, must emerge, designed to foster synergies between production facilities (treatment plants, light industries), and urban uses, be they conventional or emerging, and for which the use of drinking water can be substituted with non-conventional water (street cleaning, networks, cars, watering green spaces, etc.).
These issues can only be addressedAddressing this issue can only happen with by using an integrated approach that involving involves many disciplines present within INRAE’s different divisions. These include agronomy, soil science, human and social sciences, ecology, environment science, process engineering, water savings, digital science, and more.

Contacts - Coordination

INRAE and non-INRAE partners