Aqueducts and Sewage Systems. Rainwater Recycling: Case Study of a Health Facility

is definitely better if we use it to wash clothes, since rainwater is softer (containing less calcium 
salts), and this factor allows a minor use of detergent while granting the same result.  Less detergent 
means less pollution as well. The active role of people is crucial: our contribution to the 
conservation of our water assets - and of the environment in general – is tied to simple, everyday 
actions (taking a shower instead of a bath or not leaving the water tap unnecessarily open). Only by 
making a considerate use of water can we fully understand the value of an asset that’s becoming 
more and more degraded and essential at the same time.  The simplest solution to reduce the use of 
water from the town network up to 50% is to arrange a rainwater collecting system. Nothing new 
under the sun, one may say, considering that the Romans used to build a special pool named 
impluvium in the inner yard of their homes just to collect and store rainwater. This research intends 
to investigate the possible application of this solution to a health facility (described in the following 
chapters). Recycling such resource would generate a saving in quality, quantity and money as well. 
A practical example of rainwater recycling for less valuable uses will be described in this text. The 
present research has been accomplished through the analysis, process and solution of the following 
key points:  
 
1.  a survey of the problems related to water, especially rainwater;  
2.  identification and description of the sample facility;  
3.  draft dimensioning of the entire collection, treatment and distribution system 
according  to current regulations, domestic and foreign practices;  
4.  draft economic balance of the recycling system to adopt for the health facility, 
casting a glance to the new water-saving technologies.  
 
Rainwater harvesting has remarkably increased in the last decades, mostly in the rural areas of Asia 
and Africa, where the point is not to save money or to avoid wasting water for washing cars, no! 
The purposes are survival and sustenance. The interest for this practice has also grown in urban and 
more industrialized areas where a contribution to floods control and the reduction of pressure on the 
existing water resources may be counted among its benefits. In many cases this technology has been 
inserted as part of an integrated water provisioning system, such as where the city supply is not 
steady or the local water resource dries up for part of the year.  It is a flexible technology, adaptable 
to a wide range of circumstances, inasmuch as it may be used by both wealthy and poor 
communities, wet or dry areas.  
 
 
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2. 2. WATER AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH  
2.1.  GLOBAL OVERVIEW 
On March 22 – 2006, the “World Water Day”- sponsored by the United Nations - was celebrated at 
the end of the fourth World Water Forum, held in Mexico City. On that occasion the second report 
on the global development of water resources titled “ Water: a common responsibility” was 
produced.  The NGO AMREF remarked: “Nearly 11 and a half million people distributed among 
Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Burundi are paying the cost of the 
devastating Spring and Fall rainy season of 2005, one of the driest in the past 15 years”. The World 
Water Forum gathered together almost ten thousand people and the representatives of over 130 
Countries to discuss “ local initiatives and global challenges” around what has been defined as the 
“blue gold problem”. Statesmen, technicians and scientists, NGO and local community 
representatives  converged at the Latin – American Capitol. The stakes were high:  to verify the 
outcome of a ten-year-long strategy aimed at solving the water problem and possibly propose a new 
one. “ the economic development processes generating wealth in the industrial Countries  destroy 
natural resources at an increasingly fast pace”. No mention can be made about the use and 
management of water without referring to the concept of sustainable growth.  Development can no 
longer overlook the notion of environmental protection in order to “satisfy the basic needs, a better 
quality of life for everybody, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer and richer 
future” (Skinner, 1994). The idea of sustainable growth implies some boundaries – not absolute 
ones – but forced by the present state of technology and social set-up which may be managed and 
improved with the aim to launch a new age of economic growth. The concepts of environmental 
protection, sustainability, growth and economic development combine in the idea of sustainable 
growth, intended as growth satisfying the present  needs without jeopardizing the chances for the 
future generations to satisfy theirs, as defined by the statement of the Environment and 
Development World Committee, also known as the Brundtland report (1987). This concept rests 
upon some fundamental aspects of interchangeability among production factors and mainly inter-
generational and mid -generational  fairness.  
The notion of sustainable growth has been enriched through the years, even though the necessity to 
stop environmental damage and economic loss of balance has kept its vital position. Under the 
viewpoint of sustainable growth, the water issue is present as hard and fundamental. What is the 
“blue gold problem” and what is the decennial strategy adopted to solve it? Nearly two billion 
people  have no usual and adequate (at least 50 liters a day) access to drinking water; 3,25 billion 
 7
people have no bathrooms in their homes.  Close to 1,5 million people die every year in the world 
for these deficiencies. Not considering climate changes, desertification, coastal erosion, raising of 
the oceans’ level, increase of extreme weather events, the truth is that 20% of the living species is at 
risk of extinction because of water pollution. The main problem is thirst. There is enough drinking 
water for everyone in the world , but it is poorly distributed - there’s a lot in Iceland and very little 
in the Sahara desert - particularly by men: a great quantity is used for agriculture and too often is 
not enough to reach towns and villages, mainly in underdeveloped Countries, due to the lack or the 
arrogance of facilities (from great dams to underestimation of local traditions). A part of the aid 
funds allotted for development must be committed to hydraulic works and more generally to 
managing the problem of water in the poorest and driest Countries. At the time the strategy was 
modified:  ”trades not aids” was the war cry of the new free-trade way of thinking voiced by the 
President of the United States, soon to become a dominant theory worldwide. Hence the new 
strategy, supported by the big international financial groups: privatize. Assign a commercial value 
to water and place it on the market. That is the only way – according to the new free-traders – to 
sweep the necessary resources to solve the problem of the fluid not at random named “blue gold”. 
Therefore drinking water has changed its statute. From universal human right it has been demoted 
as need first, and then as mere commodity. . As a consequence, private firms have taken control of 
the available drinking water in several Countries. The organizers at the World Water Forum in 
Mexico City (the private World Water Council) reintroduced “globalism”, referring  to a global 
challenge to be seized  through local initiatives:  transcend negotiations between States (or between 
Companies and States) and initiate dealings with local communities (and between Companies and 
local communities). Albeit one must always bear in mind that local communities are much weaker 
than governments in negotiating with Companies (specially with the large ones) In Mexico City 
then, the real knot of water as a commodity was not untied. Here are some figures: The Earth is 
covered by water on 71% of its surface, but 95% of it is salt water. Only 1,1% of the remaining 
2,5% may be used for human activities (the rest is mainly ice).  Not fewer than 50 liters per day per 
person are necessary to define life conditions as acceptable. As a matter of fact, to have such 
amount of water each day  is a sheer utopia for billions of people, and the United Nations have 
therefore decided the minimum right to water  to be 40 liters, a mobilization target for the March 
22, 2006 World Water Day. On the other hand, the World Health Organization states that, below the 
fifty liter threshold, there is already sufferance from lack of water and that 40% of mankind lives in 
unbearable sanitary conditions mainly because of water shortage.  One Earthling  on five has no 
sufficient drinking water available: 1,2 billion people. In 29 Countries, 29% of the people are below 
the vital individual water requirement (50 l/d p.p.). Over 1 billion people drink “unsafe” water. 3.4 
 8
million people die every year (5 thousand children each day) for diseases induced by water. Water 
emergency does not just concern underdeveloped Countries but fully-developed continents as 
Europe as well. According to the World Health Organization, 16% of the people in the Old 
Continent has no drinking water and the amazing number of 140 million Europeans have no access 
to clean water and bathrooms.  A context where, quoting once more the WHO, over 13.500 
European kids die every year for causes related to these deficiencies. The heaviest toll being paid by 
the “sub-region B” of Europe. Every year over 11.000 children under 14 die in Albania, Armenia, 
Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Rumania, Serbia and 
Montenegro, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Macedonia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. But the 
WHO cautions about this figure being underestimated.  
 
2.2. THEEUROPEANENVIRONMENTAGENCY 
The 2001 EEA (European Environment Agency) annual report highlights the initiatives needed to 
promote a sustainable use of water resources. Excessive costs and the lack of adequate information 
prevent many European households from employing devices which might considerably reduce 
water consumption, as stated in the latest report by the EEA on the sustainable use of water 
resources. Household water uses account for the largest part of consumptions in urban areas and 
between half and two thirds of the water is used in toilets, bathrooms and showers. The use of 
household water may be halved by making use of new technologies such as reduced- flush toilets 
and tap-mounted economizing devices (as described in the last chapter).  However these devices are 
not very widespread, perhaps for lack of information on their availability and/or their excessive 
cost. The report concludes by recommending better information about the need to reduce water 
consumption and the available technologies to achieve this goal. The report also suggests to 
manufacturers of consumption-reducing technologies to advertise their products directly. 
Computing and paying for household water consumptions, reducing conveyance leaks in the 
distribution network, recycling rainwater are essential elements for a correct management of the 
demand. The strategic need to grant a sustainable use of water is widely recognized in Europe and 
one of the main goals included in the key parent statute on water adopted last year by the EU. A 
reliable supply and the protection of water resources through a correct management are essential to 
sustain all aspects of human life and the eco-systems depending from it. Whereas the use of water 
varies in Europe according to the different climate, culture, customs, economies and natural 
conditions, many Countries face the common challenge to manage water resources that are limited 
both in terms of quantity and quantity. The report underlines the aspects and key factors in the 
management of water demand in the various economic sectors – urban, industrial and agricultural. . 
 9
Founded mainly on a summary of particular European cases, it analyzes the spin-off on the 
environment of water saving, billing and measuring, leaks reduction, replacement of water in 
industrial processes and recycling of properly treated wastewater in irrigation. In the past 15 years 
there has been a conspicuous increase in Europe (including Italy) of agricultural irrigation. The 
importance of directly recycling wastewater in irrigation is increasing in the Mediterranean 
Countries, but the report points observes the need for an urgent definition of standards and 
guidelines on the issue. There is the added necessity to provide economic incentives to implement 
plans for uses of low-quality water. The report offers a source of compared data supporting an 
efficiency evaluation of the current policies, as well as a source of data to set up new ones There is 
the added necessity to provide economic incentives to implement plans for uses of low-quality 
water. The report offers a source of compared data supporting an efficiency evaluation of the 
current policies, as well as a source of data to set up new one. 
2.3. WATER AVAILABILITY  IN ITALY AND PUGLIA 
The situation in  Italy is not ideal, particularly in Puglia. For many years this Region has 
been putting pressure on the five bordering  ones to increase the volume of water they 
already transfer, starting from the well-known water scheme  named “Acquedotto Pugliese” 
which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was set to supply drinking water to a region 
severely lacking run-off and resurgence. The Region needs new adductions. A confusion 
factor derives from mingling irrigation with aqueduct adductions (some collection dams are 
shared). Instead of aiming to a global integrated downsizing, positively encouraged by the 
system (and permitted by law 36/94), the “multiple uses” approach has been credited as if, in 
our climate conditions, all uses were not all and only in competition and alternative to one 
another. The overall result is negative:  
a) An adequate supply of drinking water is still often unfulfilled, notwithstanding a 
yearly withdrawal of 570 million cubic meters from the Acquedotto Pugliese, 
something like 140 cubic meters/person/year or 390 liters /person/day, about twice 
the “real” requirement. 
b) The amount used for irrigation (omitting the topic of real economic requirement) is 
entirely unknown, with the chaos of wells ruling this sector and the previous end of 
any control and (albeit often condemned) management by the land-reclamation 
syndicates. 
 10
c) The Acquedotto Pugliese draws about 4 cu.m./sec. drinking water from the water 
table of the 17 cu.m./sec total poured in the water system of Puglia: therefore Puglia 
depends on its water table for 25% of  its drinking consumption.  The small amount ( 
see the Foggia hinterland ) of active wells is due to the closing for excess salinity, 
which indicates the quality fall off of water tables. Individual water consumption is 
among the highest ones: that’s because conveyance leaks (and non-invoiced use) are 
considerable and improper uses, such as agricultural irrigation, abound. The Water 
Resources Surveillance Committee (an independent organization of the public 
authority appointed with law 36/1994), has recently surveyed 52 networks over the 
entire National territory accurately scrutinizing all the elements of the “aqueduct 
service” (tapping facilities, adduction conduits, distribution networks, collection 
tanks and treatment plants for water to be poured in the net). The survey data have 
revealed alarming results mostly regarding the maintenance level and technological 
value of the facilities. Surveys of the maintenance status of the distribution network 
have exposed that the highest conveyance leaks - over 50% - in the net, ( including 
”apparent leaks” consisting of non computed – yet delivered - water amounts ), have 
been observed in the systems of Abruzzo, Campania, Puglia and Calabria. All of us 
must be persuaded and aware that water is a primary and strategic asset belonging to 
everyone and to be used with utmost care. The kind of use we have been making of 
this resource is characterized by a logic of waste rather than of rational use, as if it 
were an unlimited and ever-available commodity. As a matter of fact, although water 
is a renewable resource, it exists in a quantity that cannot be increased but annually 
renews itself through a cycle.  
 
Fig. 2.1 
 11
As a consequence, if there is an increase in demand, an increase in wastes, if a number of human 
activities poisons great quantities of water by polluting it and the weather disorders press 
desertification forward in vast areas, the total availability is reduced. There is no balance in Puglia 
between water availability and demand.  In planning water demand it’s not possible to ignore such 
aspects as the reduction of leaks in the tapping - adduction - distribution chain, the adoption of more 
efficient irrigation techniques, resorting to fee-promoting, regulation and educational/training 
mechanisms capable to influence consumers’ behavior , tapping and recycling of rainwater.  In 
order to discourage waste, it's necessary to promote and encourage recycling and re-use of 
wastewater for industrial and agricultural processes. Drought does not occur suddenly but is the 
consequence of deep environmental modifications, as previously discussed, and Puglia is no 
exception:  with an aggravating circumstance, the illusion that water is an limitless resource. It must 
be understood that the time when an increase in demand could be answered with an increase in offer 
is over; lacking the notion that it’s not possible to use more water than what is available, it will be 
very hard to exit the water crisis increasingly taking hold of farms and cities threatening to endanger 
not only agriculture but other productive activities as well, from tourism to industry, to people’s 
health conditions. Before considering to “pour more water in the pipes”, to conceive new storage 
basins upsetting the land, the priority goes to bringing back conveyance leaks to physiological 
levels by performing recovery works which could result in reclaiming significant amounts of water 
being currently wasted. The network of Puglia loses about 25% of the water resource estimated to 
be 301 million cubic meters per year, equal to the amount that is planned to be obtained from the 
region Abruzzo. In the overall “ sustainable” management of water resources we must accept the 
fact that we cannot draw from natural sources (water table, watersheds and streams), greater water 
quantities than those naturally re-forming, under pain of a progressive impoverishment of the 
availability in itself. Due to the heavy over-exploitation conditions, specially of Salento and all the 
coastal areas, whenever drawing water from the subsoil becomes intense and extensive, as in 
periods of particular drought of wells, salt water is drawn from deeper strata with fresh water from 
the table.  
The solutions to the problem of water scarcity appearing as logical in the past were the construction 
of new dams and the exploitation of spring and underground water. This method cannot be adopted 
for much longer, as already stated.  Whereas conserving available water is the least burdensome and 
most immediate solution. Water conservation is not intended as the alternative to carrying out 
extensive projects, but the enhancement of the value of water that they bring about. 
 12
2.4. RAIN WATER  
Our supply source may then be partly made of the water that regenerates periodically in accordance 
with a cycle. The notion of washing-away rainwater is not clear so far, unfortunately art. 2 of 
Lgs.D. 152/99, although amended by Lgs.D. (legislative decree) 258/00, does not precisely define 
washing-away rainwater but identifies it by exclusion, comparing it to industrial, household or 
urban wastewater, and sets it separately. It almost certainly consists of drain; if we refer in fact to 
the definition of drain in art.2: ” whatever direct intake by conduit of fluid, semi-fluid wastewater 
and however subject to be conveyed in shallow water, soil, subsoil, or sewer, regardless of its 
polluting nature and even if subject to preliminary purification treatment” what has been stated is 
confirmed. Such definition would however not apply to rainwater not being conveyed by conduit, 
that is only in case no human act, originating from the need to channel it somewhere in order to 
preserve property,  was performed. A further distinction is made in the new art.39 of Lgs.D. 152/99 
– “Washing away and first- rain water” between early rainwater and washing away rainwater, the 
former type being clearly different from the latter. This definition arises from matters of hydraulic 
and environmental risk. What becomes manifest from the new article is that generally there is  a 
hydraulic type problem whenever sewer networks intended to collect wastewater are of the mixed 
type, that is designed to receive clear water (a common definition of rainwater) as well. Due to the 
inadequacy of civic systems and the high intensity of rainfall in recent years this choice seems to 
cause significant flooding incidents in urban areas, in spite of several by-passes purposely located 
along the roads which are activated beyond a given delivery limit and allow excess water to be 
discharged. In Appendix A1 “ Methods of control for first rain water and washing water from outer 
areas, as per art.39 Lgs.D. 152/99 as amended by Lgs.D.  258/2000” of the Chief Plan extracted 
from the Water Protection Plan of Puglia Region washing rainwater is defined as rain water falling 
over the entire draining waterproofed area afferent to the discharge or intake point, whereas first 
rain water is defined as  the first meteoric washing water up to 5mm maximum rainfall height, 
relevant to each rainfall event occurring after at least 48 hours dry weather, evenly spread over the 
entire draining area. Once this difference has been ascertained it’s necessary to understand how 
and how much does rainwater, which is supposed to be clean, become polluted to this extent.  The 
causes for this occurrence are several. First of all the rain droplets, by crossing the atmosphere, 
come in contact with the pollutants  contained in it and practically wash it:  this effect, often 
positive for the quality of air, causes rainwater to receive its first share of pollution. Secondly, 
rainwater gets dirty by coming in contact with roads, large squares, parking lots, roofs and all those 
surfaces where pollutants had previously collected and are washed away by rainwater itself. The 
steady urbanization of  land adds to the constant attention of the national and international scientific 
 13
community for problems of rainwater disposal and quality.  In their Collection of lecture notes for 
the course in “ Management of water treatment and recycling ” Professors Gianfranco Boari and 
Ettore Trulli wrote: “In order to minimize the adverse effects of a growing urbanization, it’s 
necessary to pass an efficient water resources protection policy to be implemented through definite 
initiatives such as:  
 
.  ξ  Quality and quantity factors' control of drainage water; 
.  ξ  Conservation of eco-systems in watercourses.  
This goal may be achieved by monitoring the urban and meteoric wastewater disposal 
system, consisting mainly of the sewer network and the associated discharge and storage 
facilities, considering some fundamental quality-related aspects such as:  
 
.  ξ  The operation of main conduits for water collection and removal, to avoid leaks and 
seepage of sewage into the surrounding environment;  
.  ξ  The operation of treatment units, in order to minimize the impact of the purified 
affluent on the receiving water body;  
.  ξ  Monitoring the pollution originated from the transfer of  flood water in the final 
receptor, discharged  through the skimming devices of the mixed  sewage systems’ excess delivery 
units, in order to  reduce the impact generated on the water bodies in case of severe rainfall;  
.  ξ  Monitoring pollution generated by direct transfer of rainwater in the final receptors 
running across urbanized  watersheds; an action requiring the definition of methods allowing to 
assess the pollutants’ potential carried by it, with the purpose to determine for it the best possible 
disposal option among the available ones:  collection, treatment and discharge.”  
 
The urbanization processes also imply consistent modifications of the surface-flowing 
phenomena. The construction of pavements and artificial canals substitutes the natural 
watershed beds and noticeably reduces rainwater permeation, whose permanence on the 
surface depends on the slope. Moreover, the speed of surface flowing tends to increase, 
causing a consequent increase of delivery and a difficulty in rainwater disposal phenomena. 
Therefore thoughtless urbanization processes (not a rare occurrence in Italy) endanger the 
existing sewage systems and determine the necessity to conform them rather than - often - 
rebuild themcompletely. 
 14