Techno-economical evaluation of water reuse for wetland restoration: a case study in a natural park in

The main interest of the methodology for the investigation of wastewater reclamation and reuse systems which is proposed in this paper is that all costs and benefits (social and private) are considered in the economic and technological analysis. This general concern allows an improvement in the design of investment decisions. Traditionally, an economic-financial analysis of wastewater reclamation and reuse systems focuses exclusively on the study of costs and private benefits. The methodology that is presented in this paper takes into account not only the private impacts but also the project spillovers which could have relevance on the project. In this research, the use value of the reclaimed water in the Natural Wildlife Park of Aiguamolls de l’Emporda ` is estimated. The travel cost technique is applied to estimate the external value of the Park. According to the final results, the price of the reclaimed water in the Park should have to be between 0.75 ⁄/m3 (without opportunity cost) and 1.20 ⁄/m3(with opportunity cost).

The main interest of the proposed methodology is that all costs and benefits (social and private) related to the Empuriabrava WWRRS are considered in the economic and technological analysis. This general concern allows an improvement in the design of public and private WWRRS investment decisions. Traditionally, an economic-financial analysis of a WWRRS focuses exclusively on the costs and private benefits. The methodology presented here considers not only the private impacts but also the project spillover that affects it, through an analysis of the external impacts, both positive and negative. The estimated use value of the reclaimed water in the Natural Wildlife Park of Aiguamolls de l’Emporda lies between 0.75 ⁄/m3 (without ` the value of time) and 1.20 ⁄/m3 (with the value of time). This is rather a low value in comparison with the results for other uses of reclaimed water (agricultural irrigation). Nevertheless, with this results, it is demonstrated that the contructed wetlands has private economic benefits (because provides reclaimed water for public uses in the Natural Park) as well as has served for restoring an old wetland zone.