METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RISK PREVENTION IN WATER AND WASTE MANAGEMENT: ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDIES

Environmental risks account for a large fraction of the global disease burden. The link between environmental risks and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) shows that improving environmental conditions is an important element in progressing towards SDGs concerning the health-based targets. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss methodological approaches that can be useful for planning safe water and sanitation systems addressed to reduce the environmental and health risks. Three different case studies has been presented and discussed related to drinking water, wastewater and solid waste. The first case study concerns the Water Safety Plan development for the Drinking Water Supply Systems (DWSS) of a town in northern Italy. The second case study concerns a Wastewater Treatment Plant where bioassays have been conducted on the influent and effluent so as to compare the water cleaning potential of the activated sludge process and additional ozonation, compared to the pollution load to the atmosphere due to energy consumption. The last case study focuses on dumpsites in developing countries and the related potential health risks. In the first case study, the team has studied the DWSS to identify the hazardous events, hazards and risks by means of the application of a semiquantitative risk matrix approach, proposing new control measures with the aim to reduce the risks. The second case study found the use of tertiary ozonation improves the human health status by reducing the overall impact of about 20-25%, compared to the reference situation. In the last case study has been evaluated groundwater contamination caused by the escape of leachate from dumpsites in developing countries, considering different boundary conditions and finding the area of risk was always very large.