Optimising water resource efficiency and treatment with a whole-systems approach.
Key contacts
Professor Max Munday
Director of Welsh Economy Research Unit
- mundaymc@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2087 5089
About
The Water and Circular Economy theme brings together the concepts of the circular economy, the interconnected natural and human water cycles, and low-carbon/green technologies. Using a wide set of approaches and working with non-academic partners, we seek to develop novel intervention strategies to address water and wastewater contaminants, and efficiency issues.
The circular economy concept has become widespread in the research literature. It focuses on more efficient material use linked to human consumption and the regeneration and improvement of environmental systems, and considers issues of waste design and pollution control, longevity and maintenance of products. The regeneration of natural capital is a core paradigm in the evolution of the circular economy.
But much of the literature on water systems and the circular economy fails to address how innovation and optimisation in waste treatment, materials use/reuse, and resource extraction and use, links to the regeneration and enhancement of natural capital. For instance, innovation to design out waste externalities and to keep materials in long-term use can have a series of hidden effects on future freshwater ecosystems services.
Some of the strongest links between circular economy practices and the implementation of sustainable development goals have been around issues of clean water and sanitation. Sustainable development goals have been difficult to operationalise in conventional water resource management because of a lack of business and political will. By considering resilience, ecosystem services and the natural capita, circular economy debates need to reframe water from a management problem to a future opportunity.
Within the Water and Circular Economy theme, we explore this issue using a multidisciplinary lens, by using and developing examples from water and waste treatment research, water basin management, agricultural water systems, logistics and economic systems. Part of our emerging work seek to identify:
- how the concept of circular economy is operationalised in research,
- how the specific circular economy principles are elucidated,
- how the regeneration of natural capital paradigm (particularly around freshwater ecosystems) is addressed.
Current initiatives
Contact us to find out more about our ongoing research activities:
- Sunlight Assisted Filtration Equipment (SAFE)
- Management of taste and odour compounds in drinking water
- Phosphorus recovery from wastewater