A difference in the way agencies carrying out water-reuse case-studies view metrics compared with a more general set of stakeholders has been identified by a study carried out by the WateReuse Research Foundation (WRRF).
Urban Recycled Water Programs: Identifying Evaluation Metrics and Understanding Key Organizational Relationships (WRRF-10-17), just published, reveals that, for case-study interviewees, a general non-normalized volume metric of water-reuse dominated their perspective. The single most important metric for three of the four urban reuse case-study programs was how much reclaimed water was used per year on an annual average basis, in million gallons per day.
On the other hand, for representatives from six stakeholder groups, including recycled water programs, water supply organizations, academia, regulatory agencies, nongovernmental organizations and customers, the contribution of the recycled water program to the regional water picture was the only use-related metric they considered highly appropriate.
In response to another study objective — assessing the significance of key stakeholder group interactions for program implementation — recycled water program managers identified the following types of organizations as having the most influence on program implementation: regulators, partner agencies and customers.
The foundation also recently released Approaches to Maintaining Consistently High Quality Recycled Water in Storage and Distribution Systems (WRRF-08-04)
This study explored the water quality transformations that occur during recycled water distribution and storage. It was divided into five phases involving a questionnaire, case studies, storage tank experiments, distribution system sampling and hydraulic modeling.