Socio Economic Aspects of Sewage Sludge Use in Agriculture

Abstract

The sewage sludge is being globally used for agricultural purposes since decades. The worldwide water crisis, a scarcity of fresh water, and, of course, the need to dispose of massive amounts of wastewater created by households and industry are all grounds for using wastewater in agriculture. Wastewater is a complicated resource that has both benefits and drawbacks. It has the potential to be extremely helpful to farming communities and society as a whole. It ensures a constant supply of water to farmers for crop production, aids in soil nutrient conservation, decreasing the need for artificial fertilizers, enhances crop yields and returns from farming, and is a cost-effective and low-budget form of wastewater disposal. The production of wastewater and its reuse has shown a rapid increase with increase in water shortage in many regions of the world, due to expanding population and industrial as well as urban expansion. As industries have grown in urban areas, the structure and content of wastewater has shifted from being primarily organic to containing increasingly hazardous components such as heavy metals and other chemicals. Hence wastewater use can also inflict harmful impacts on communities using this resource and on ecosystems in general. The extensive use of wastewater containing toxic wastes is likely to spread harmful wastewater-borne diseases, more rapid degradation of the environment as well as social issues. Traditionally, issues of efficiency, safety, and cost effectiveness have driven wastewater management techniques. However, there is still a need to apply a uniform technique that takes into account all sociological and economic factors and leads to better wastewater management practices. A paradigm shift is therefore the need of the hour, not only to mitigate the damage to the ecosystems, but also to emphasize the long-term usage of wastewater as a resource that requires proper management in order to ensure future water security. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.