Social innovation

Social innovations are new solutions including products, services, models, markets, processes, and so on, which simultaneously meet a social need (more effectively than existing solutions) and lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships and better use of assets and resources. In other words, social innovations are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act^[1].

The relationship between social innovation and environmental outcomes

Social innovation has a positive influence on the environmental outcomes. Social innovation seems like a valuable and powerful tool in order to get a good result for environment, which includes social groups to create and develop ideas and solutions about environment. In addition, social innovation is well positioned to deal with environmental challenges, which are multifaceted and often require social or behavioral shifts towards more sustainable options related to SDG (Sustainable Development Goal).

Case study of social innovation and environmental outcomes

If you have already understood the relationship between social innovation and environmental outcomes, some people maybe concern whether environmental outcomes can be effectively achieved through social innovation or not.

There is a case about specific social innovation, which exemplify environmental benefits being effectively achieved and work towards SDG (Sustainable Development Goal). There are initiatives in wastewater treatment and wastewater recycling. In addition, social innovation will lead to environmental benefits based on the concept of ecosystem services, supporting natural resources, such as wetlands and rivers, which provide a range of services to the local, national and global community.

Case study: Wastewater Treatment Project related to environmental social innovation ^[2]

Kristianstads Vattenrike is a 35-km-long wetland area surrounded by cultivated landscape in southern Sweden, which provides important ecosystem services, such as flood control, water purification, biodiversity support, recreational space and grazing for cattle. For many years, farmers had used the wetlands for grazing and making hay but economic pressures had caused farmers to relocate to land that was easier to manage, which means the wetlands became wastewater, losing their value in terms of providing habitat for wildlife, recreational spaces and other ecosystem services.

Therefore, the local government came up with a social innovation, which had a positive influence on local environment. The eco-museum has been constructed as a social innovation in order to create a balanced relationship between people and nature improving the wastewater treatment where conservation and sustainable development go hand in hand with each other. In addition, biosphere reserves are designated by the United Nations to play an important role in managing the wetlands.

When the eco-museum Kristianstads Vattenrike as social innovation was established, the wetland was taken into consideration as an asset rather than an environmental problem, appealing to a range of values by integrating conservation with social development and creating a new identity for the town of Kristianstad. By doing so, the goal of management was no longer simply wastewater treatment but also supporting ecosystem services through social innovation, which does a great job in contributing to social and economic wellbeing. What’s more, the eco-museum as the social innovation formed a bridging organization, which can coordinate the fragmented efforts to manage wastewater and facilitated more collaborative management of this area with high environmental value.

The case of wastewater treatment project related to environmental social innovation mentioned above tends to provide multiple benefits or functions, which is the best results we would expect to see.

Recommendations to environmental social innovation related to SDG (Sustainable Development Goal)

• For the case of wastewater treatment project related to environmental social innovation mentioned above, biosphere reserves are designated by the United Nations to play an important role in managing the wetlands related to SDG, clause 15.1 ^[4], which ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements. Therefore, with the help of the United Nations, the issue of wastewater happening in wetland will be treated in a sustainable way in order to develop social innovation.

• Good environmental outcomes will require constant support from social innovation. Although the principles of social innovation, such as working collaboratively and in a participative manner, can be applied to improve the environment, there is a need for more detailed knowledge in wastewater related to SDG, clause 4.7 ^[4], which ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. Therefore, government should focus on strengthening the knowledge and encouraging individual initiative base on environmental social innovation, which will make sure that environmental results and outcomes are positive in a sustainable way in the years to come.

• In the case of social innovation that benefits the environment, methods from natural and social sciences may need to be combined to assess the joint effects on the environment and society. Impacts on biodiversity, air and water quality and climate change should be measured alongside impacts on health, quality of life and community cohesion related to SDG, clause 11.6 ^[4], which reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other wastewater management. Therefore, environmental social innovation will be an exciting prospect for researchers, providing them with the opportunity to develop new methods, approaches and indicators in order to achieve environmental social innovation to a larger extent.

Reference

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_innovation

[2] Adams, D. & Hess, M. (2008). Social innovation as a new public administration strategy. In: Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public Management.

[3]https://www.google.com/search?q=Biosf%C3%A4rkontoret,+Sven-Erik+Magnusson&rlz=1C1SQJL_zh-CNAU818AU818&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib1MvX58jkAhUJfH0KHcSsApUQ_AUIEigB&biw=1707&bih=838&dpr=1.13#imgrc=_GoDUzvC_Jc5bM: [4] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

Wastewater

Wastewater is the used water from households and business, which is disposed through the sewerage syastem. The majority of the wastewater is sourced from showers and washing machines.

As we know, water resources on earth are limited so that top priority has been given to the waste water treatment, which can provide a sustainable and secure water resource to human being.

Therefore, regulatory frameworks, which includes social constructs, policy, legislation, and so on need to be taken into consideration. From my own perspective, legislation framework plays a significant role in developing a better wastewater engineering.

The relationship between legislation framework and wastewater engineering

Speaking of the relationship between legislation framework and wastewater engineering, I think they are complementary, which means legislation framework seems to be a constraint in order to supervise the quality of the wastewater and wastewater treatment engineering can be improved with the development of the legislation framework in order to make sure the healthy human body, energy-consuming reduction, and work efficiency improvement.

The importance of regulation in the development of better wastewater engineering

To be clarified, regulation or legislation of wastewater is provided by the federal government, which presents and summarizes recommended wastewater treatment guidelines for the development of better wastewater engineering in order to protect ecosystems and environment in a sustainable way.

In addition, there is an old saying goes that nothing can be accomplished without norms or standards. Similarly, wastewater treatment is the most important issue related to people’s healthy life under the wastewater regulation or legislation, which can promote the development of the wastewater engineering.

Only on the basis of obeying the regulation or legislation, wastewater engineering can be better development in a sustainable way. Therefore, regulation or legislation of wastewater can do a great job in developing wastewater life cycle (shown in Figure 1 below) ^[1]. The figure demonstrated that five effective regulatory cycle at different stages will make sure wastewater engineering proceeding smoothly.

Additionally, with the help of the regulation or legislation, the final results of the wastewater engineering will reach a higher hierarchy (shown in Figure 2 below) ^[1].

What’s more, I found some Australian regulations, which can illustrate how to have an important influence on the following aspects:

1. Metropolitan Arterial Drainage Act (1982) provides for an arterial drainage scheme and the declaration of drainage courses in order to regulate the wastewater treatment ^[2].
2. The clearing of vegetation is controlled under Environmental Protection Act (1986) and Country Areas Water Supply Regulations (1981), which are used to manage and protect salinization of water resources from wastewater treatment in factories ^[3].
3. The Department of Wastewater and Environmental Regulation leads wastewater resource management in Western Australia by coordinating cross-government efforts to protect and manage wastewater resources (Water Agencies Act, 1984), including ^[4]:
   • assessing wastewater resources;promoting the efficient use of wastewater resources;
   • promoting the efficient provision of wastewater services;
   • preparing plans for and providing advice on wastewater management;
   • The objects include providing for the sustainable use and development of wastewater resources, protection of their ecosystems and the environment in which assisting the integration of wastewater resources management with other natural resources management.
   • The wastewater treatment should be associated by-laws in order to protect the state’s public drinking water sources, i.e. proclaimed catchment areas, water reserves and pollution areas (underground water pollution control areas).

Finally, wastewater regulation or legislation in Western Australia is currently contained in six separate Acts, several of which were established in the early 20th century. Constant amendments to the wastewater regulation or legislation over the decades has already become more completed, and in some cases, wastewater regulation or legislation has a positive influence on modern wastewater engineering management.

Innovative legislation as solution to wastewater engineering related to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals)

Old legislation cannot provide for management of innovative new ways to manage wastewater. From my own perspective, innovative regulation or legislation related to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) should be created as solution in order to cope with the wastewater engineering issues:

• First of all, education occupied the significant role in wastewater engineering, which means more and more people should be conscious of the importance of the wastewater for the sake of avoiding and reducing the wastewater produce in daily life, including bathing and washing. According to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Clause 4.7 (shown in Figure 3 below) ^[5], By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. This is exactly what the contemporary society needs. Therefore, the innovative legislation should be enacted, which will invest more money to the education in order to increase public awareness of wastewater treatment, and also it’s a great way to make sure public grasping basic wastewater knowledge as well as achieving sustainable development of wastewater in the years to come.

• Secondly, it is known that upgrading of equipment will decide the wastewater treatment energy-consumption and efficiency. According to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Clause 9.4 (shown in Figure 4 below) ^[5], By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities. Therefore, legislative provisions also should cater for equipment upgrading of wastewater treatment by investing a large amount of money on small and medium-sized enterprises, which means government will not worry about water quality issues in the future.

• Thirdly, wastewater treatment cycle at different stages (mentioned above) will improve water quality, which can make sure wastewater engineering proceeding smoothly. According to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Clause 6.3 (shown in Figure 5 below) ^[5], By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally. Therefore, an innovative legislation should be created in order to reduce pollution, improve untreated wastewater, and focus on increasing recycling and reusing wastewater globally.

• Finally, the development of wastewater engineering is closely related to cutting-edge technologies. According to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Clause 9.5 ^[5], Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending. Therefore, government should carry out a legislation about developing the cutting-edge technologies. An example of a new approach to manage water is managed aquifer recharge. This is the injection of recycled water into groundwater where it can be stored for later use (shown in Figure 6 below) ^[6]. Construction is underway to build Australia’s first full scale groundwater replenishment scheme. When complete, the scheme will have the capacity to recharge 14 billion litres of recycled water per year into deep confined aquifers, providing an additional secure, rainfall independent water source for Perth in order to reduce the stress of wastewater treatment.

The innovative legislation closely related to SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) will support the development of better wastewater engineering in order to reduce the wastewater pollution, increase water quality, protect the environment, and even change climate in Perth or in Western Australia or maybe all over the world.

Reference

[1]https://www.der.wa.gov.au/images/documents/our-work/regulatory-principles/Guidance_Statement_Regulatory_Principles.pdf

[2]https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_25638.pdf/$FILE/Metropolitan%20Arterial%20Drainage%20Act%201982%20-%20%5B03-a0-03%5D.pdf?OpenElement

[3]https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_41689.pdf/$FILE/Environmental%20Protection%20Act%201986%20-%20%5B09-c0-02%5D.pdf?OpenElement

[4]http://www.water.wa.gov.au/legislation/current-legislation

[5]https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

[6]http://www.water.wa.gov.au/legislation/water/water-resource-management-legislation

What kinds of issues do wastewater infrastructure facing?

A variety of issues need to be taken into consideration into wastewater infrastructure: 1. Aging wastewater infrastructure 2. Funding concerns 3. Expanding regulations 4. Technology backwardness

Aging wastewater infrastructure

It is beyond any question that the most important issue currently facing wastewater infrastructure is aging wastewater infrastructure, which includes pumps, pipelines, tunnels, and wastewater treatment facilities (shown in Figure 1 below).

The seriousness of this problem is that aging wastewater infrastructure will lead to wastewater not to be treated very cleanly, which will pose a potential threat to human health as well as natural environment. In addition, it will not catch up the up-to-date regulation, which is illegal and constitute a crime. What’s more, keeping using the aging wastewater infrastructure will have a negative influence on energy consumption due to the fact that innovative technology cannot be applied into aging wastewater infrastructure.

For example, more than 50% of the water distribution and collection systems in the Northeastern America are more than 60 years old. In the Midwest of America, 35% of water processing infrastructure is more than 60 years old ^[2].

Based on the SDG 9 (sustainable development goals 9) (shown in Figure 2 below): In 2016, medium-high and high-tech sectors accounted for 44.7 percent of the global manufacturing value added. Medium-high and high-tech products continued to dominate manufacturing production in Northern America and Europe, reaching 47.4 percent in 2016 compared with 10.4 percent in least developed countries ^[3]. Even if America nominated the medium-high and high technological products in the world, reaching at 44.7%, aging wastewater infrastructure occurs commonly in America. Not to say that the serious problems of aging wastewater infrastructure occur in developing countries, such as China, India, and so on.

In my opinion, Funding (Money) is always a problem in solving the aging wastewater infrastructure, which will use to purchase the up-to-date machines supported by government keeping up with the changing regulations and technology in the future.

What should we do with aging wastewater infrastructure？

Based on the analysis mentioned above, top priority has been given to the solution of dealing with aging wastewater infrastructure. We need to evaluate the existing wastewater equipment and to determine that we can purchase as well as update wastewater equipment or repair the existing wastewater equipment adding innovative technology in order to reduce money to update aging wastewater equipment to a larger extend. There are several factors acting as solution of aging wastewater infrastructure. Some factors to be considered include:

• First of all, we need to appeal to the government focusing on the aging wastewater infrastructure, which will be our support for funding. No matter refurbishment or replacement, we need a lot of money to deal with the problem.
• Secondly, laws and regulations must be observed when we are working on wastewater treatment so that aging wastewater infrastructure should be solved.
• Thirdly, we need to consider the condition of the aging equipment, which is a significant element in the determination of whether the aging wastewater infrastructure can be refurbished or requires replacement under government financial support as well as law permission.
• Finally, advanced science and technology (including cloud computing, virtualization and hosted application) are indispensable, which will invent new machines to do the wastewater treatment and develop the new method to improve the existing wastewater equipment in order to reduce energy consumption, costs and risk to a larger extent in an sustainable way.

Innovation

In class, Dr. Steve Capewell develop the idea of innovation across the water cycle, which is quite inspiring and useful (shown in Figure 3 below).

It shows that innovation can apply in different stages of water cycle, which contains concept, system and adoption under the consideration of commercial, risk, sustainability and so on. Based on the concept map mentioned by Dr. Steve Capewell, aging wastewater infrastructure belongs to second and last stage, which needs to technology evaluation and mainstreaming under the commercial, risk and sustainable consideration. Under this circumstance, I will do the further analysis of the aging wastewater infrastructure associated with SDG 9 (shown in Figure 4 below).

1. we need to conduct vigorous propaganda the harm of wastewater and aging wastewater infrastructure for public in order to increase the awareness of environmental protection. This is the most effective and economic action to reduce wastewater generation.
2. Upgrading and retrofitting aging wastewater infrastructure need to be more considered to make sustainable environment with advanced and resource-used efficient technologies all over the world according to SDG 9, clause 9.4 ^[3].
3. Scientific research needs to be taken into consideration, which will upgrade the technological capabilities of aging wastewater infrastructure in the future. In particular, the developing countries should be encouraged to increase the number of researches for the sake of doing more innovative technology on aging wastewater infrastructure. For example, we need to encourage innovation and develop workers per 1 million people and public and private research, which is associated with SDG 9, clause 9.5 ^[3].
4. Due to the backward innovative technology (aging wastewater infrastructure) in the developing countries, the water pollution has become a severe problem in the developing countries so that they cannot acquire the clean water. Most developed countries grasp the core technology of upgrading the aging wastewater infrastructure compared to the developing countries. Therefore, developed countries have responsible to enhance developing counties (African countries) financial and technological support (SDG 9, clause 9.A.) ^[3] in order to make the world a better place. For example, it is significant that the developing countries need to increase the access to advanced technological information and communications through Internet provided by developed countries in 2020 (SDG 9, clause 9.C) ^[3].

Reference

[1]https://www.google.com/search?q=Aging+Infrastructure+in+wastewater+treatment&rlz=1C1SQJL_zh-CNAU818AU818&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic2s-W4ZHkAhUNA3IKHdWzAtQQ_AUIESgB&biw=1707&bih=837&dpr=1.13

[2] Prosser MEE, Speight VL, Filion YR. Life‐cycle energy analysis of performance versus age‐based pipe replacement schedules. Water Works 2013, 105: P721– P732.

[3] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg9

[4] Dr. Steve Capewell, Water Corporation. The future for urban water services. P15.

·The composition of wastewater

All the water can be defined as wastewater, which is composed of physical, chemical and biological pollutants, which will pose a potential threat on human health and sustainable environment.

·Physical contamination in wastewater

Have you ever seen toilet paper floating in the water in your life when you gone to the toilet? Can you imagine that you are swimming in the ocean or river with plastic bags or bottles? (shown in Figure 1 below) OMG. That’s disgusting! Those are the physical contaminants, which can be seen and touched. Those may be made of chemicals or they may have dangerous bacteria on them. With respect to wastewater, physical contamination can occur in domestic water (toilet paper in toilet water and food debris in our own glass of water). In addition, natural water resources will contain huge physical contamination (sludge in river), which may change the property or appearance of water.

·Major challenges facing physical contamination treatment

People on earth should be fully aware that water resource is limited and exhaustible, so that we need to recycle and reuse the wastewater. However, it’s difficult to deal with some problems about wastewater treatment.

For treatment process

First of all, more energy consumption is one of the major issues of wastewater treatment in order to decompose physical pollutants in wastewater treatment process (shown in Figure 2 below)

Secondly, it’s really difficult to purify and reuse the wastewater from physical pollutants during the wastewater treatment process, which will pose the potential threat to the body health and environmental issues (shown in Figure 3 below). The graph illustrated that we have a limited water resource from now to the future. Although wastewater desalination gradually increased, reusing wastewater still occupied a little part in the years to come due to the fact that we have limited knowledge and technology to develop the physical contamination in wastewater. On the other hand, physical pollutants contain a good deal of chemical and biological toxins, which will pollute water so that not only deal with the physical issue, but also consider other problems at the same time.

For environment

Sludge is another big issue we need to take into consideration, which is the residue generated during the physical treatment ^[3]. Besides, sludge is a major environmental challenge for physical wastewater treatment, which is hard to cope with the disposal of excess sludge produced during the process. Furthermore, final sludge disposal is originally a health risk issue due to the risk of spreading pathogens.

·Solution

It is universally acknowledged that clean water is an essential resource for people’s daily life as well as living environment throughout the whole world. Based on the major challenges facing wastewater treatment mentioned above, top priority has to be given to the solution of physical contamination in wastewater.

From my own perspective:

1. Safe and long-term solutions for the destination of sludge produced by wastewater treatment plants are vital to sludge disinfection as well as final sludge disposal in an environmentally sustainable way ^[4]. In addition, we need to stop throwing the toilet paper into the toilet basin after using the toilet in our daily life and we need to try not to throw plastic bags or bottles into the rivers when we are travelling in order to improve the quality of the water making a better word in accord with SDG 6 ^[5] (6.3 improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally).
2. Training and education of a new generation of engineers as well as scientists play a significantrole in wastewater treatment (including physical contamination in wastewater treatment) for the sake of designing new and retrofitting old wastewater treatment methods (including physical contamination in wastewater treatment methods) under the sustainable development goal 6 ^[5] (6.A develop sanitation-related activities, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies) and the sustainable development goal 6 ^[5] (6.4.1 Change in water-use efficiency over time), which will break through the limits of the technologies and processes to achieve wastewater (including physical contamination in wastewater) recycling and reuse as efficient as possible to a larger extent over time.
3. To set up integrated water management system and sustainable water management system ^[6] are important to design a proper water distribution as well as wastewater collection in order to deliver effective water resource services with minimum risks and sustainable system related to SDG 6 ^[5] (6.5 implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate). Figure 4 shows the major themes that need to be integrated for a sustainable water management system.

Reference

[1] https://waterfilteranswers.com/drinking-water-contamination-north-america/

[2] https://www.iea.org/

[3] United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (2002) Radionuclides in Drinking Water: A Small Entity Compliance Guide, EPA 815-R-02-001.

[4] “National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System”. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2017-01-15.

[5] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg6

[6] Bixio, D., Deheyder, B., Cikurel, H. et al. (2005) Municipal wastewater reclamation: where do we stand? An overview of treatment technology and management practice. Water Supply 5, 77–85.

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