Potential and planning to reuse municipal wastewater for the irrigation of vinicultures in Attica, Greece

Abstract

The investigation of the reuse potential of liquid urban wastes from Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) for the irrigation of vinicultures is a new technique in Greece. It requires holistic planning, which will take into account all the parameters related to the WWTPs operation, as well as the geological, soil and hydrological characteristics of the area, the microclimate, and the wastewater quality in terms of chemical and microbiological composition. Finally, it will take into account all the equivalent quality characteristics of the soils and the vinicultures, for the successful and safe reuse of the wastewaters. This holistic reuse planning will substantially contribute to the protection of the environment, and to irrigated viniculture's expansion in the east of Attica, since grapevine culturing is a single-crop farming in the wider area.