Is it possible to reduce wastewater to obtain sustainable cities? Some urban experiences

To address these global concerns, a fundamental shift in the way things are manufactured and processed is required. In this Master’s thesis, I will focus on the role of cities in the environment, due to their linear setting that powers the capitalist system, producing and managing the resources as the capacity of the planet to recover them were endless. One of the one-fits-all solutions that was proposed in the last decades is the circular economy model, i.e. the modus operandi of the various actors through which everything that is extracted, obtained, or used from the environment in order to create a product, service, or energy useful for their realization, can continue to be part of the economic cycle, even after the need for which it was created and conceived has been satisfied. Attention will be also put to recognizing drivers and barriers in the circular economy model, which is given as the new solution to every problem. I will try to understand the main difficulties, such as the lack of a proper business model for its realization, and the lack of proper information. To achieve the shift to sustainability, cities can make use of several instruments; among them, I will explain the concept of the so-called Nature-based Solutions (NBS), which could be presented as one of the main tools to face a huge number of canonic cities problems in a more sustainable way. To further understand NBS and innovations, the focus will be put also on a case study of MULTISOURCE, a Horizon 2020 European project that aims to demonstrate NBS for urban water treatment, storage, reuse and reduction. In this project, technical pilots treat a wide range of urban water, where the decision support tools are co-designed together with local, national, and international stakeholders.