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Economic and environmental performance of wastewater treatment plants: Potential reductions in greenhouse gases emissions

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  • Molinos-Senante, María
  • Hernández-Sancho, Francesc
  • Mocholí-Arce, Manuel
  • Sala-Garrido, Ramón

Abstract

Sanitation and wastewater treatment are essential for protecting human health and environmental sustainability. Treatment processes are not free of environmental impacts; consequently assessment of the environmental performance of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has gained interest in recent years. Unlike other methods, a direct approach is followed to estimate environmental performance indicators (EPIs) using data envelopment analysis (DEA), i.e. an index of overall performance is directly obtained. The present study represents pioneering work to integrate environmental impacts in the assessment of the efficiency of WWTP estimating pure (PEPI) and mixed (MEPI) environmental performance indices for a sample of 60 Spanish WWTPs. Both direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were considered as undesirable outputs. The best functioning WWTPs to be used as references were identified, and the potential for GHG reductions was quantified. A second-stage analysis was conducted to isolate factors affecting WWTP environmental performance. The results of this study are valuable for WWTP operators and policy makers, since the benchmark procedure allows support for environmental and managerial decision-making.

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  • Molinos-Senante, María & Hernández-Sancho, Francesc & Mocholí-Arce, Manuel & Sala-Garrido, Ramón, 2014. "Economic and environmental performance of wastewater treatment plants: Potential reductions in greenhouse gases emissions," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 125-140.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:38:y:2014:i:c:p:125-140
    DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2014.07.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    2. D’Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura & Romano, Giulia & Guerrini, Andrea, 2018. "Water pollution in wastewater treatment plants: An efficiency analysis with undesirable output," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(1), pages 24-34.
    3. Guerrini, Andrea & Romano, Giulia & Mancuso, Fabrizio & Carosi, Laura, 2016. "Identifying the performance drivers of wastewater treatment plants through conditional order-m efficiency analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 20-31.
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    6. Miao, Zhuang & Chen, Xiaodong & Baležentis, Tomas & Sun, Chuanwang, 2019. "Atmospheric environmental productivity across the provinces of China: Joint decomposition of range adjusted measure and Luenberger productivity indicator," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 665-677.
    7. Guerrini, Andrea & Molinos-Senante, María & Romano, Giulia, 2018. "Italian regulatory reform and water utility performance: An impact analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 95-102.
    8. Ke Wang & Zhifu Mi & Yi‐Ming Wei, 2019. "Will Pollution Taxes Improve Joint Ecological and Economic Efficiency of Thermal Power Industry in China?: A DEA‐Based Materials Balance Approach," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 23(2), pages 389-401, April.
    9. Mojtaba Ghiyasi & Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary, 2021. "Environmental Efficiency Analysis for Multi Plants Production Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, April.
    10. Levent Kutlu, 2020. "Greenhouse Gas Emission Efficiencies of World Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-11, November.
    11. Hashem Omrani & Mohaddeseh Amini & Mahdieh Babaei & Khatereh Shafaat, 2020. "Use Shapley value for increasing power distinguish of data envelopment analysis model: An application for estimating environmental efficiency of industrial producers in Iran," Energy & Environment, , vol. 31(4), pages 656-675, June.
    12. Andrea Guerrini & Giulia Romano & Alessandro Indipendenza, 2017. "Energy Efficiency Drivers in Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Double Bootstrap DEA Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-13, June.
    13. Mancini, G. & Luciano, A. & Bolzonella, D. & Fatone, F. & Viotti, P. & Fino, D., 2021. "A water-waste-energy nexus approach to bridge the sustainability gap in landfill-based waste management regions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Oriana Gava & Fabio Bartolini & Francesca Venturi & Gianluca Brunori & Angela Zinnai & Alberto Pardossi, 2018. "A Reflection of the Use of the Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Agri-Food Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, December.
    15. Meng-Shiuh Chang & Chih-Chun Kung, 2018. "The greenhouse gas impact of bioenergy in developing economies: Evidence from Taiwan," Energy & Environment, , vol. 29(3), pages 315-332, May.
    16. Ramon Sala-Garrido & Manuel Mocholi-Arce & Maria Molinos-Senante & Michail Smyrnakis & Alexandros Maziotis, 2021. "Eco-Efficiency of the English and Welsh Water Companies: A Cross Performance Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-17, March.
    17. Henriques, Alda A. & Camanho, Ana S. & Amorim, Pedro & Silva, Jaime G., 2020. "Performance benchmarking using composite indicators to support regulation of the Portuguese wastewater sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    18. Alda A. Henriques & Milton Fontes & Ana S. Camanho & Giovanna D’Inverno & Pedro Amorim & Jaime Gabriel Silva, 2022. "Performance evaluation of problematic samples: a robust nonparametric approach for wastewater treatment plants," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 193-220, August.
    19. Fuentes, R. & Torregrosa-Martí, T. & Hernández-Sancho, F., 2017. "Productivity of wastewater treatment plants in the Valencia Region of Spain," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 58-70.
    20. Emrouznejad, Ali & Yang, Guo-liang, 2016. "A framework for measuring global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index with CO2 emissions on Chinese manufacturing industries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(P1), pages 840-856.
    21. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan, 2015. "Comparison among U.S. industrial sectors by DEA environmental assessment: Equipped with analytical capability to handle zero or negative in production factors," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 69-86.
    22. Wang, H. & Ang, B.W. & Wang, Q.W. & Zhou, P., 2017. "Measuring energy performance with sectoral heterogeneity: A non-parametric frontier approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 70-78.
    23. Emrouznejad, Ali & Yang, Guo-liang, 2016. "CO2 emissions reduction of Chinese light manufacturing industries: A novel RAM-based global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 397-410.
    24. Longo, Stefano & d’Antoni, Benedetto Mirko & Bongards, Michael & Chaparro, Antonio & Cronrath, Andreas & Fatone, Francesco & Lema, Juan M. & Mauricio-Iglesias, Miguel & Soares, Ana & Hospido, Almudena, 2016. "Monitoring and diagnosis of energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants. A state of the art and proposals for improvement," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1251-1268.
    25. Molinos-Senante, Maria & Maziotis, Alexandros, 2022. "Evaluation of energy efficiency of wastewater treatment plants: The influence of the technology and aging factors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wastewater treatment; Data envelopment analysis (DEA); Efficiency; Environmental performance index; Greenhouse gases (GHG); Undesirable outputs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • L89 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Other
    • M20 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - General
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

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