Thesis (M. Sc. (Soil Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Water scarcity poses significant risks to global food security. The use of treated wastewater for irrigation could be a sustainable remedy for water scarcity in arid to semi-arid regions. Furthermore, it has been the most readily available source of water which can serve as an adaptation strategy to shortage of irrigation water. The objectives of the study were to determine (1) whether different disposal points following wastewater treatment could have effects on the quality of treated wastewater used for irrigation at the University of Limpopo (UL) experimental farm and (2) the response of selected critical nutrients, microbial and enzyme activities on soils irrigated with treated wastewater at the UL Experimental Farm. Water samples were collected monthly at three disposal points, namely, the exit point of treated wastewater from the treatment plant (Pond 16), the entry point into the night-dam and the exit point from the night-dam at the UL Experimental Farm. The water samples were analysed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), sodium (Na), nitrate (NO3-), phosphate (PO42-), sulphate (SO42-), salinity, magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), potassium (K), chlorine (Cl), total dissolved solids (TDS), total soluble salts (TSS), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), Ascaris lumbricoides, Escherichia coli, Shigella spp., Salmonella spp. and Vibrio cholera. A field experiment was conducted on a separate 4-ha virgin field (VF), cultivated field (CF) and fallowed field (FF), with soil samples collected from 0- 5, 5-15 and 15-30 cm soil depth in each field and analysed for pH, EC, mineralisable P, NH4+, NO3-, organic carbon (OC), active carbon (AC), potential mineralized nitrogen (PMN), fluorescein diacetate (FDA) and phosphatase (PTS) enzyme activity. All data were subjected to ANOVA using Statistix 10.1. The treated wastewater had, at the three sampling points, significantly different EC, Na, NO3-, PO42-, SO42-, Cu, Zn, Shigella spp., V. cholerae, A. lumbricoides and E. coli, whereas salinity, pH, Mg, Ca, K, Cl and Cd were not affected by the sampling point. Generally, the night-dam entry and exit points had significant increases in PO42-, K and Ca when compared to Pond 16 exit. In contrast, the flow of wastewater from Pond 16 through the furrow to the entry and exit of the night-dam resulted in decreases of Na, NO3- and Cl. The exit point of water from the night-dam at UL Experimental Farm had the least harmful materials, rendering it the safest point with the best water quality for irrigation. In the field study, NH4+, NO3- and PMN were significantly different in soil depth. However, NO3- field × depth interaction effects were not significantly different. In contrast to all soil parameters, FDA and PTS activity for both soil depth and field × depth interaction effects were highly significantly different. The EC and pH were not affected by soil depth or field type. The negative effects of treated wastewater were mainly observed in the cultivated field. In conclusion, treated wastewater with fallowing could be used as the best approach to overcome water shortages, with the uses having the potential to reduce the need to apply high synthetic chemical fertilisers. Keywords: water reuse, disposal points, essential nutrients, microbial activities

No description available.

Source water protection planning (SWPP) is an approach to prevent contamination of ground and surface water in watersheds where these resources may be abstracted for drinking or used for recreation. For SWPP the hazards within a watershed that could contribute to water contamination are identified together with the pathways that link them to the water resource. In rural areas, farms are significant potential sources of pathogens. A risk-based index can be used to support the assessment of the potential for contamination following guidelines on safety and operational efficacy of processes and practices developed as beneficial approaches to agricultural land management. Evaluation of the health risk for a target population requires knowledge of the strength of the hazard with respect to the pathogen load (mass concentration). Manure handling and on-site wastewater treatment systems form the most important hazards, and both can comprise confined and unconfined source elements. There is also a need to understand the modification of pathogen numbers (attenuation) together with characteristics of the established pathways (surface or subsurface), which allow the movement of the contaminant species from a source to a receptor (water source). Many practices for manure management have not been fully evaluated for their impact on pathogen survival and transport in the environment. A key component is the identification of potential pathways of contaminant transport. This requires the development of a suitable digital elevation model of the watershed for surface movement and information on local groundwater aquifer systems for subsurface flows. Both require detailed soils and geological information. The pathways to surface and groundwater resources can then be identified. Details of land management, farm management practices(including animal and manure management) and agronomic practices have to be obtained, possibly from questionnaires completed by each producer within the watershed. To confirm that potential pathways are active requires some microbial source tracking. One possibility is to identify the molecular types of Escherichia coli present in each hazard on a farm. An essential part of any such index is the identification of mitigation strategies and practices that can reduce the magnitude of the hazard or block open pathways.

No description available.

Para auxiliar os gestores das organizações em seu processo decisório, o emprego de métodos de apoio à tomada de decisão é utilizado desde o século passado, a partir da década de 1950, havendo forte ênfase nas questões econômico-financeiras e operacionais das alternativas. Atualmente, o uso de métodos que consideram as questões relativas à sustentabilidade ambiental das alternativas é um assunto que tem despertado interesse, conforme se observa na literatura recente, ainda que relativamente escassa. Contudo, a práxis da maioria dos métodos multicritério existentes tem embasamento no tomador de decisão como um indivíduo ao invés de um grupo e a ampla diferença entre o comportamento de um indivíduo e de um grupo é negligenciado. Neste novo tipo de abordagem, soluções para resolver os conflitos que inevitavelmente surgem da necessidade de atender os diferentes critérios dos agentes envolvidos devem ser propostas. Para estes casos, a Teoria dos Jogos é reconhecidamente uma abordagem que permite a resolução de conflitos por meio da avaliação de diferentes cenários com diferentes alternativas. Neste sentido, a presente pesquisa apresenta um método multicriterial, baseado em indicadores de sustentabilidade em conjunto com a Teoria dos Jogos e o equilíbrio de Nash, para que seja uma das ferramentas de apoio na escolha do sistema de tratamento de esgoto sanitário para municípios. Para tornar possível a metodologia proposta, indicadores de sustentabilidade foram selecionados para serem usados como critérios na avaliação de alternativas de sistema de tratamento de esgoto. Além disto, vetores de pesos para os critérios foram definidos para representar perfis de jogadores. A partir disto, foi proposta uma função de pagamentos e um exemplo foi gerado a partir da definição do jogo e seus jogadores, tendo sido o software Gambit utilizado para encontrar o equilíbrio de Nash do jogo. Como resultado, a aplicação da metodologia proposta permite tratar o processo de escolha de ETE como um processo de escolha em grupo, ao invés de uma escolha individual, e visa contribuir para quebrar o paradigma da busca pela eficiência baseada nos critérios formados pelo binômio técnico e econômico na escolha de sistemas de tratamento de esgoto. Desta forma, a aplicação do novo método visa proporcionar meios para se enxergar o mesmo problema sobre diferentes focos e, com a utilização de diferentes critérios, poderia facilitar o processo da tomada de decisão para a escolha da alternativa técnica, econômica, ambiental e socialmente mais adequada. / To assist the managers of organizations in their decision making, the use of methods to support the decision are used since the last century, from the 1950s, with a strong emphasis on economic issues, financial and operational details of the treatment plants sewage. Currently, the use of methods to consider issues relating to the environmental sustainability of wastewater treatment plants is a subject that has attracted attention, as shown in recent studies, although relatively scarce. However, the practice of most existing methods are based on multicriteria decision-maker as an individual instead of a group and the wide difference between the behavior of an individual and a group is neglected. In this new approach, solutions to resolve the conflicts that inevitably arise from the need to meet the various criteria of the parties involved must be proposed. For these cases, game theory is admittedly an approach that allows the resolution of conflicts through the evaluation of different scenarios with different alternatives. With this research we sought to develop a measurement methodology based on indicators of sustainability in conjunction with game theory and Nash equilibrium, that is one of tools to support the choice of system of sewage treatment for a particular municipality . For the proposed new methodology, sustainability indicators were selected to be used as criteria in the evaluation of alternative system of sewage treatment and weight vectors for the criteria were defined as profiles of players. From this, we choose a function of reward and an example was generated from the definition of the game and its players, the software Gambit was used to find the Nash equilibrium of the game. The proposed methodology allows us to treat the process of choosing ETE as a selection process in group, rather than an individual choice, and aims to deconstruct the paradigm of the quest for efficiency based on criteria formed the duo in the technical and economic choice of systems for wastewater treatment. Thus, applying the new method aims at providing means to see the same problem on different sides, and with the use of different criteria, could facilitate the process of decision making for the choice of alternative technical, economic, environmental and socially suitable.

”Rätt avlopp på rätt plats” – Livscykelanalys av tre enskilda avloppsanläggningar Problemen med övergödning i Östersjön och i Sveriges insjöar är stort och enskildaavlopp pekas ut som en central aktör, framförallt beträffande fosforutsläppen. I Sverigefinns det ungefär en miljon enskilda avloppssystem och nästan hälften av dessa har enså pass bristande vattenrening att de inte uppfyller gällande lagstiftning. Utvecklingenav nya tekniker för rening av avloppsvatten har länge strävat efter att minska utsläppenav övergödande ämnen, detta ibland på bekostnad av andra utsläpp, så somväxthusgaser och försurande ämnen.Det här examensarbetet har därför med hjälp av metodik från livscykelanalys (LCA)utvärderat tre enskilda avloppssystem med tanke på deras utsläpp av växthusgaser,försurande gaser samt övergödande ämnen. Då misstanke också fanns att de lokalaplatsegenskaperna påverkar de enskilda avloppssystemens totala miljöpåverkan,utfördes även en intervjustudie med ett antal av landets kommuner. I intervjustudiengjordes ett försök att identifiera de platsegenskaper som påverkar valet ochutformningen av de enskilda avloppssystemen. De tre avloppssystemen som ingick istudien är markbädd samt kompaktfilter i kombination med antingen ett reaktivt filtermed Polonite®, eller i kombination med kemfällning.Resultatet av studien visade att markbädden hade lägst utsläpp av både växthusgaseroch försurande gaser, men högst utsläpp av övergödande ämnen. De tvåfosforreducerande systemen uppvisade betydlig bättre potential för att reduceraövergödande ämnen, men detta på bekostnad av större utsläpp av växthusgaser ochförsurande gaser, speciellt i fallet med det reaktiva filtersystemet. Lokalaplatsegenskaper, så som näringsretention, visade sig spela en central roll för deundersökta avloppssystemens totala miljöpåverkan. I områden med hög fosforretentionunder vattnets väg till havet skulle avloppssystem med höga utsläpp av fosfor (så somdet markbaserade systemet) kunna vara försvarbara. På de platser i landet därövergödningen är problematisk finns det dock motiv för att använda fosforreducerandesystem. / "Right sewage system in the right place" - Life cycle assessment of three on-sitewastewater treatment options The problem with eutrophication in the Baltic Sea and in Swedish lakes is serious andon-site wastewater treatment systems are considered important, especially forphosphorus emissions. There exist about one million on-site wastewater treatmentsystems in Sweden and almost half of them do not meet current legislation.Development of new technologies for on-site wastewater treatment systems has for along time been focused on reducing emissions of eutrophying substances. However,there is a risk that this reduction could be achieved at the expense of other emissions,such as greenhouse gases and acidifying substances.This master thesis has therefore by use of life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluated threeon-site wastewater treatment systems considering their total emission of greenhousegases, acidifying gases and eutrophying substances. Because local site characteristicswere thought to affect the sewage systems overall environmental impact, an interviewstudy were also carried out with a number of municipal officials. The interview studywas designed to identify the local site characteristics that influence the selection anddesign of the on-site wastewater treatment systems. The three sewage systems includedin the study were a soil treatment system with surface water discharge and a compactbiological filter in combination with either a reactive filter module with Polonite®, or incombination with chemical precipitation.The results of the study reveal that the soil treatment system had the lowest emissions ofboth greenhouse gases and acidifying gases, but the largest emissions of eutrophyingsubstances. The two phosphorus reducing systems showed significantly greaterpotential to reduce the emissions of eutrophying substances, but at the expense of largeremissions of greenhouse gases and acidifying gases, especially in the case of thereactive filter system. Local site characteristics such as the retention of nutrients, provedto play a vital role in the investigated sewage systems overall environmental impact. Inareas with high retention of phosphorus sewage systems with high emissions ofphosphorus (such as the soil treatment system) where favored. However, in areas whereeutrophication is problematic, it is justified to use phosphorus reducing systems.

Para auxiliar os gestores das organizações em seu processo decisório, o emprego de métodos de apoio à tomada de decisão é utilizado desde o século passado, a partir da década de 1950, havendo forte ênfase nas questões econômico-financeiras e operacionais das alternativas. Atualmente, o uso de métodos que consideram as questões relativas à sustentabilidade ambiental das alternativas é um assunto que tem despertado interesse, conforme se observa na literatura recente, ainda que relativamente escassa. Contudo, a práxis da maioria dos métodos multicritério existentes tem embasamento no tomador de decisão como um indivíduo ao invés de um grupo e a ampla diferença entre o comportamento de um indivíduo e de um grupo é negligenciado. Neste novo tipo de abordagem, soluções para resolver os conflitos que inevitavelmente surgem da necessidade de atender os diferentes critérios dos agentes envolvidos devem ser propostas. Para estes casos, a Teoria dos Jogos é reconhecidamente uma abordagem que permite a resolução de conflitos por meio da avaliação de diferentes cenários com diferentes alternativas. Neste sentido, a presente pesquisa apresenta um método multicriterial, baseado em indicadores de sustentabilidade em conjunto com a Teoria dos Jogos e o equilíbrio de Nash, para que seja uma das ferramentas de apoio na escolha do sistema de tratamento de esgoto sanitário para municípios. Para tornar possível a metodologia proposta, indicadores de sustentabilidade foram selecionados para serem usados como critérios na avaliação de alternativas de sistema de tratamento de esgoto. Além disto, vetores de pesos para os critérios foram definidos para representar perfis de jogadores. A partir disto, foi proposta uma função de pagamentos e um exemplo foi gerado a partir da definição do jogo e seus jogadores, tendo sido o software Gambit utilizado para encontrar o equilíbrio de Nash do jogo. Como resultado, a aplicação da metodologia proposta permite tratar o processo de escolha de ETE como um processo de escolha em grupo, ao invés de uma escolha individual, e visa contribuir para quebrar o paradigma da busca pela eficiência baseada nos critérios formados pelo binômio técnico e econômico na escolha de sistemas de tratamento de esgoto. Desta forma, a aplicação do novo método visa proporcionar meios para se enxergar o mesmo problema sobre diferentes focos e, com a utilização de diferentes critérios, poderia facilitar o processo da tomada de decisão para a escolha da alternativa técnica, econômica, ambiental e socialmente mais adequada. / To assist the managers of organizations in their decision making, the use of methods to support the decision are used since the last century, from the 1950s, with a strong emphasis on economic issues, financial and operational details of the treatment plants sewage. Currently, the use of methods to consider issues relating to the environmental sustainability of wastewater treatment plants is a subject that has attracted attention, as shown in recent studies, although relatively scarce. However, the practice of most existing methods are based on multicriteria decision-maker as an individual instead of a group and the wide difference between the behavior of an individual and a group is neglected. In this new approach, solutions to resolve the conflicts that inevitably arise from the need to meet the various criteria of the parties involved must be proposed. For these cases, game theory is admittedly an approach that allows the resolution of conflicts through the evaluation of different scenarios with different alternatives. With this research we sought to develop a measurement methodology based on indicators of sustainability in conjunction with game theory and Nash equilibrium, that is one of tools to support the choice of system of sewage treatment for a particular municipality . For the proposed new methodology, sustainability indicators were selected to be used as criteria in the evaluation of alternative system of sewage treatment and weight vectors for the criteria were defined as profiles of players. From this, we choose a function of reward and an example was generated from the definition of the game and its players, the software Gambit was used to find the Nash equilibrium of the game. The proposed methodology allows us to treat the process of choosing ETE as a selection process in group, rather than an individual choice, and aims to deconstruct the paradigm of the quest for efficiency based on criteria formed the duo in the technical and economic choice of systems for wastewater treatment. Thus, applying the new method aims at providing means to see the same problem on different sides, and with the use of different criteria, could facilitate the process of decision making for the choice of alternative technical, economic, environmental and socially suitable.

Främmande organismer i fartygs barlastvatten har med sjöfarten spridits runt världen med förödande konsekvenser. För att reglera denna spridning infördes Barlastvattenkonventionen av IMO, som innebär att fartyg inom en viss tid måste investera i godkända barlastreningssystem. Konventionens implementering har skapat ett visst huvudbry och rederier har ställts inför utmaningen att välja system som passar deras fartyg och fartområden. En kvalitativ intervjustudie genomfördes med representanter från svenska tankrederier för att få en bild av hur de har hanterat konventionen. Vidare undersöktes på vilka beslutsgrunder olika reningstekniker valdes samt hur eventuellt installerade system har levt upp till förväntningar. Intervjustudiens resultat visade att samtliga rederier har påverkats ekonomiskt och upplever problem med att hantera konventionens implementering samt att hitta tillförlitliga barlastreningssystem. En rapport kom även fram under intervjuerna där Saudiarabien hade gjort omfattande provtagningar på fartygs barlastvatten som visade att ett anmärkningsvärt stort antal fartyg med IMO-godkända barlastreningssystem inte klarade utsläppskraven. Intervjustudien indikerar påtagliga brister i barlastreningssystemen som Saudirapporten även bekräftar. / Aquatic invasive species have spread around the world in ships’ ballast water tanks with dire consequences. To regulate this spreading, the International Maritime Organization implemented the Ballast Water Management Convention which forces ships to, within a certain time frame, install approved ballast water treatment systems. The implimentation of the Convention has been complex and shipping companies have had to face challenges of choosing suitable treatment systems for their ships and trading areas. For this study, qualitative interviews were conducted with representatives from Swedish tanker shipping companies to examine how the Convention has affected them. On what grounds different treatment techniques were chosen was also examined, as well as if installed treatment systems have met expectations. Results from the study show that companies have suffered economical impacts, have had difficulties handling the implementation of the Convention as well as difficulties finding reliable treatment systems. Furthermore, one respondent referred to a report submitted by Saudi Arabia where extensive ballast water sampling had been conducted on ships calling their ports. The report showed that a considerable amount of ships with approved ballast water treatment systems did not meet the required levels of organisms in the treated ballast water. The interviews confirm the report’s description of the treatment systems’ fundamental flaws.

Cette thèse a pour but d’étudier le confort acoustique ressenti par les usagers de systèmes de traitement d’air (STA), tels que les systèmes de climatisation installés en bureaux de différentes tailles, en prenant en compte les facteurs environnementaux liés au contexte particulier d’usage de ces produits. À l’origine s’est présenté le besoin industriel d’une norme fiable d’évaluation des sons émis par les STA, pour offrir une représentation plus fidèle de la perception que le seul standard existant aujourd’hui : le niveau acoustique émis exprimé en dBA. Ce contexte impose en premier lieu une étude approfondie de la perception des sons de STA tels qu’émis par les appareils. Ainsi, une démarche rigoureuse a été suivie allant du recueil d’un nombre conséquent d’enregistrements de sons de STA jusqu’à l’établissement d’une métrique robuste de prédiction de la qualité sonore perçue. Pour ce faire, ont tout d’abord été établies les différentes familles perceptives qui constituent l’ensemble des enregistrements de sons de STA effectués. De cet ensemble de familles a été extrait un corpus de travail permettant une complète représentativité des différents types de sons émis par les STA. Les attributs auditifs pertinents pour la description perceptive de ce corpus sonore ont ensuite été identifiés en appliquant les principes de l’étude du timbre musical, déjà adoptés avec succès pour la description d’autres types de sons de l’environnement. Ces attributs auditifs ont enfin servi de base descriptive pour expliquer les préférences des auditeurs vis-à-vis des sons de STA afin d’établir un prédicteur efficace de la qualité sonore à l’aide de descripteurs audio. Dans un second temps, afin de prendre en considération le contexte écologique des STA, l’influence de deux facteurs environnementaux sur l’évaluation de la qualité sonore des STA a été étudiée dans le but d’en évaluer l’importance sur le ressenti des usagers. D’une part, comme les STA étudiés sont des appareils exclusivement installés en intérieur (bureaux), l’effet de la réverbération sur l’évaluation de la qualité sonore a été étudié à l’aide d’un système d’auralisation permettant de reproduire virtuellement la réponse acoustique d’une salle. D’autre part, l’influence du contexte attentionnel des auditeurs sur la qualité sonore perçue a été évaluée à l’aide d’une étude comparative de différentes situations d’écoute. En effet, on observe que la perception du son émis par les STA se traduit typiquement par une forme de perturbation de leur occupation quotidienne.. Il est donc apparu pertinent d’évaluer à quel point le degré d’attention portée sur le son influe sur l’évaluation de la qualité sonore par les auditeurs. Ainsi nous avons pu établir dans quelles mesures et selon quelles limites le prédicteur de qualité sonore établi peut représenter fidèlement le confort ressenti par les usagers dans un contexte offrant un meilleur degré de validité écologique que les conditions habituelles de laboratoire. / This thesis addresses the perceived acoustic comfort of Air-Treatment Systems (ATS), such as air-conditioners installed in offices, by taking into account the environmental factors related to the specific context of ATS usage. The only existing standard to evaluate the sounds emitted by ATS, which is the emitted sound level in dBA, is only loosely related to perception. Therefore, the need of manufacturers for a more reliable standard arises. This implies a thorough study of the perception of the sound of ATS as it is emitted. A precise methodology was then followed: it includes first collecting a high number of ATS sound recordings, up to finally developing a robust metrics to predict the perceived sound quality. For that purpose, different perceptual categories were first identified to constitute the recording database of ATS sounds. A corpus considered as fully representative of the different types of emitted sounds was then extracted from the recording database. Current principles of musical timbre description have already proved to be adequate to other types of environmental sounds; by applying these principles, the relevant auditive attributes for the corpus perceptual description were identified. In order to develop an efficient sound quality predictor through audio features calculation, prominent features based on these auditive attributes were identified that explain the listeners’ preferences among ATS sounds. The ecological context of ATS was examined in a second step. Two environmental factors were addressed in the context of ATS sound quality evaluation to ponder their importance in the listeners’ perception. As the ATS under study are exclusively indoor systems designed for offices, the effect of reverberation on sound quality evaluation was first studied; for that purpose, an auralization tool was used to simulate room acoustic response. The influence of listeners’ attention context on perceived sound quality was then evaluated through a comparative study of various listening conditions. As a matter of fact, the sound emitted by ATS in real conditions is perceived as a perturbation of current activities. It is therefore relevant to evaluate how deeply the degree of attention related to the sound affects listeners as regards their perception of acoustic quality. Eventually, the relevance of the proposed sound quality predictor to comfort perception was assessed in conditions more ecologically representative than usual laboratory environment.

O presente trabalho propõe uma metodologia científica, com critérios bem definidos, para avaliar e quantificar o desempenho ambiental e a renovabilidade de processos de tratamento de esgoto, numa base única: a exergia. O desempenho ambiental é quantificado através do cálculo da eficiência exergética ambiental, definida como a razão da exergia do efeito útil do processo pela exergia total consumida dos recursos humanos e naturais, incluindo todas as entradas exergéticas. O cálculo da renovabilidade é feito por meio do índice exergético de renovabilidade definido como como a razão entre a exergia dos produtos pela soma das exergias não renováveis, a exergia destruída, a exergia de desativação e a exergia das emissões e residuos. A metodologia foi aplicada a três processos de tratamento de esgoto: dois biológicos (aeróbio e anaeróbio) e um físico-químico (TQA). O cálculo dos indicadores exergéticos foi realizado para cada um destes processos e foi observado que o processo com maiores valores de desempenho ambiental e renovabilidade, considerando o metano e o lodo do processo como efeito útil, foi o processo RAFA Lagoa Facultativa, com valores respectivamente de n<exerg,amb> (0,983) e lâmbda(7,060). A análise dos resultados mostrou que a metodologia proposta é uma ferramenta útil na avaliação e comparação do desempenho ambiental e da renovabilidade de processos de tratamento de esgoto. / This work proposes a scientific methodology, with well defined criteria, to assess and quantify the environmental performance and renewability of wastewater treatment processes on a single base: the exergy. The environmental performance was measured by calculating the environmental exergy efficiency defined as the exergy ratio of the useful effect of the process to the total exergy consumed by human and natural resources, including all the exergy inputs. The renewability calculation was done using the renewability exergy index defined as the exergy ratio of the products to the sum of the non-renewable exergy, destroyed exergy, deactivation exergy and the emissions and waste exergy. The methodology was applied to three wastewater treatment processes: biological (aerobic and anaerobic) and physicochemical (CEPT) processes. The exergy indicators were calculated for each of these processes and it was observed that the process with the higher environmental performance and renewability values, considering the methane and sludge of process as useful effect, was the Facultative Lagoon UASB process, with values, respectively, of n<env,exerg>(0.983) and lambda(7.060). The results analysis showed that the proposed methodology is a useful tool in the evaluation and comparison of environmental performance and renewability of wastewater treatment processes.