Sustainable Protection of Water Resources in Southeast Asia

Despite rapid economic growth and development in Asian developing countries, the population lives under poor condition and is not connected to central public supply related to sanitation such as clean water supply, waste management, wastewater management, and safe faecal sludge management. Mostly population discharge untreated wastewater and faecal sludge to the environment. Besides, the government often faces inefficiency such as the operation of inadequate centralized wastewater treatment plants. Those issues create negative externalities as pollution of surface and groundwater, and affect the quality of life unavoidably.

As a result, Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (DEWAT), which can maintain lower-cost technology in terms of operation and maintenance than the centralized wastewater treatment, has been widely encouraged in the development of innovative technology, and in increasing the quantity of production. DEWAT should be preferably installed at single households or small communities.

Presently in Thailand, septic tanks are designed according to owners theory and hypothesis, and there may be technical staff for maintenance in certain periods. It is a fact that there are too few testing institutions and standards for material test and treatment performance of prefabricated septic tank in the completely ASIAN region. By now manufacturers can only get the results in durability and organic matter reduction of septic tanks.

Also, septic tanks are not covered in the scope in terms of production quality and application in many countries. Hence, it is necessary to verify treatment performance that both users and manufacturers can benefit according to quality production and an increasing level of quality and performance. Therefore developing and improving standards in future is fundamental.

Sustainable Protection of Water Resources in Southeast Asia: Improvement of Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Plants - publication (PDF) [borda-sea.org]