Co-PI : Durba BIswas

Team: Arun Kumar GP (Project coordinator, Water and soil Lab, ATREE), Shiva Subramanya (Webtool development, ATREE), Sreekuttan V N (Website developer, ATREE), Chetan Toliya (Illustrator, ATREE), Samhitha Devaraj (Intern, ATREE), Ishana Sundar (Intern, ATREE), Rachita Devi (Intern, ATREE)

Greywater refers to the wastewater generated from cooking, bathing, washing hands and washing clothes. While this water is not potable, treated greywater can be utilised for certain activities, such as watering plants and flushing toilets. In recent years, nature-based greywater treatment systems have gained popularity as a sustainable solution to address freshwater scarcity and water quality degradation. These systems use natural processes to treat and recycle greywater, providing a cost-effective, decentralised and eco-friendly alternative to traditional treatment methods. The key features of these systems include biofiltration units, constructed wetlands and natural filters. While greywater treatments can improve water reuse and water quality in schools, there is a paucity of literature on their treatment efficacy in schools across the Global South.

To address this gap in literature, a review of the available technical literature and insights from ATREE’s past work on water quality  and wastewater treatment has been combined with the survey data of wastewater generation, treatment, and reuse practices across 23 government schools in Bangalore’s rural, urban, and peri-urban areas. Through the survey, school-level data has been collected on water sources and discharge points, status of water and sanitation infrastructure, operations and maintenance-related activities, perception of linkages between wastewater discharge and human and environmental health, and the costs associated with water and sanitation infrastructure and activities. Additionally, water and wastewater samples have been collected from the schools and tested for parameters such as BOD, COD, phosphate, nitrate and fecal coliform.

Through this exercise, the overarching goal has been to create a web-based tool that can help policymakers, NGOs and other stakeholders to identify the most appropriate wastewater treatment system for individual schools. AquaWISE is a decision support web tool which helps end users to select school specific greywater treatment technologies that are specific to the site conditions, requiring minimal and easily accessible data inputs from the end users.

AquaWISE tool