abstract
- This chapter presents Indian case studies carried out (i) to identify socio-demographic determinants of water end-use consumption in households and (ii) to critically appraise an innovative decentralized water system, which combined rainwater harvesting (RWH) with wastewater reclamation to provide design alternatives and water management optimization opportunities. Studies present real-world sustainability analyses where the water infrastructure costs, blue and recycled water demands, electricity demands, and operational costs over a calendar year were collated to find the sustainability of RWH systems. This chapter also introduces policy and management related to city resilience and robustness. Scenario analysis recommended a water system design alternative with wastewater reclamation for ground maintenance only, which was predicted to yield similar environmental benefits. Rainwater harvesting had high infrastructure costs, and water policy in low-and middle-income countries should instead support wastewater reclamation as best practice in water management. In this study, we also enumerated the various ongoing uses of biowaste-derived char and proposed real-world practical IoT-based applications as an additive to control diffuse micro-pollutants and to increase city safety ecologically. © The Author(s).