Advanced Treatment, Water Reuse, Resource Recovery, Sustainable Design, Modeling, Automation and Digital Wastewater EngineeringWastewater engineering is rapidly moving beyond conventional treatment and disposal. Modern wastewater facilities are becoming
water-resource recovery, energy-efficient, resilient, automated, and digitally connected infrastructure systems.
Wastewater Engineering Handbook – Volume 4 provides a comprehensive professional reference for this new generation of wastewater engineering.
Beginning with
wastewater reuse and reclaimed water, the book explores fit-for-purpose treatment, industrial reuse, agricultural and landscape irrigation, groundwater recharge, potable reuse, advanced membranes, disinfection, risk management, monitoring, storage, and reclaimed-water distribution.
It then examines
industrial wastewater treatment, including wastewater characterization, pollution prevention, equalization, chemical and biological treatment, difficult industrial contaminants, high-TDS streams, advanced treatment, zero-liquid-discharge concepts, and industrial water reuse.
The book continues into the emerging field of
resource recovery, covering water, energy, nutrients, biogas, biosolids, phosphorus, nitrogen, struvite, and circular-economy strategies. Sustainability is addressed through energy efficiency, aeration and pumping optimization, renewable energy, biogas-to-energy systems, carbon assessment, life-cycle assessment, and resilient infrastructure.
The volume also presents
decentralized, distributed, and nature-based wastewater management, including package plants, on-site systems, decentralized treatment, constructed wetlands, small-community treatment, rural wastewater management, and resilient distributed solutions.
The second half moves into advanced engineering practice, covering:
- Wastewater treatment plant design methodology
- Hydraulic modeling and process simulation
- Dynamic biological modeling
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
- Mixing and short-circuiting analysis
- Automation and instrumentation
- PLC and SCADA systems
- Smart wastewater treatment plants
- BIM and 3D plant modeling
- Digital twins
- Artificial intelligence
- Machine learning
- Predictive analytics
- Predictive maintenance
- AI-assisted process control
- Energy optimization
- Data-driven decision making
The digital-engineering chapters emphasize a crucial principle:
technology must serve engineering objectives. Reliable data, validated models, sound hydraulic and process fundamentals, cybersecurity, operator involvement, and professional judgment remain essential. The book specifically positions BIM, digital twins, AI, and analytics as complementary technologies that can improve treatment reliability, compliance, energy efficiency, maintenance, safety, resilience, resource recovery, and life-cycle cost.
Designed for
civil and environmental engineers, consultants, designers, contractors, treatment-plant operators, researchers, asset managers, academics, and students, this volume connects established wastewater engineering practice with the technologies shaping the future of the water sector.
From reclaimed water and resource recovery to CFD, SCADA, BIM, digital twins, and artificial intelligence, this handbook provides an integrated perspective on how wastewater infrastructure can become:
More efficient. More sustainable. More resilient. More predictive. More intelligent.It will recover resources, conserve water, optimize energy, learn from data, anticipate problems, and continuously improve its performance.Wastewater Engineering Handbook – Volume 4 provides the engineering foundation for making that future practical.
