Waste water irrigation

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 16

Waste water irrigation

A large research project is being conducted jointly by Sweden and Tunisia to develop an irrigation system using recycled waste water, a method that may help solve the water management problems confronting nations in the arid regions of the world.

Described as the largest international project ever undertaken by the Department of Water Resources Engineering at Lund University in southern Sweden, the undertaking has recently entered its second phase, and for the next three years will involve experiments in irrigation using water recycled from the pilot sewage treatment plant built in Tunisia when the project got under way in 1982.

An allocation from the Swedish Commission for Technical Cooperation will be used to develop

suitable methods for purifying the waste water entering the plant, and for testing the effect of the recycled water on crops, the environment and public health in the region. The Swedish researchers are primarily responsible for supplying the expertise for the water purification and environmental protection part of the project, while their Tunisian counterparts are developing the irrigation technology. The intense urbanisation that has taken place in Tunisia over the last several years has put a tremendous strain on the area’s limited water resources and sewage treatment facilities, at the same time putting the area’s existing water supplies and surrounding environment at risk. The effort to develop adequate facilities for purifying the

area’s waste water so that it can be used for irrigation is, therefore, an attempt to deal with both problems. Tunisia is the first developing country to attempt to alleviate its water resource problems in this way. If the project is deemed a success, it could serve as a model for other nations confronting the same dilemma. The results from the project are also expected to assist the establishment of suitable building norms for countries located in arid and semi-arid climates. Several Swedish companies have shown an active interest in the project by contributing both materials and know-how in the belief that it is advantageous having their products tested under different conditions. — Swedish International Press Bureau.