Socio-Economic Aspects of Centralized Wastewater System for Rural Settlement under Conditions of Eastern Poland

Abstract

This paper presents a case study concerning multivariate analysis, including social and financial aspects, as well as environmental impacts, of the organized sanitation development under conditions of the selected rural settlement in Poland. Three technologically up-to-date variants of sanitary sewerage network concepts with the different assumed sewage transport, i.e., pressure, pressure-gravity and gravity, were proposed together with the investment and operation and maintenance costs estimation. The willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) survey was used to analyze the level of social acceptance and involvement. The financial analysis covered two economic and cost-efficiency dynamic indicators, benefits–costs ratio (BCR) and dynamic generation cost (DGC), commonly used to support the decision-making process. The environmental aspects were assessed by the possible anthropopressure caused by sewerage leakage and odor emissions. Results of the WTA and WTP survey presented a significant level of acceptance and involvement of the local population to sustain the improved sanitation. The determined values of DGC indicated low cost-efficiency of the gravity system, while obtained values of BCR for all variants and the actual regional sewage fees showed the low profitability of improved sanitation, i.e., BCR < 1.0. All studied sanitation systems were assessed positively due to their environmental impacts. The performed studies showed that, despite the declared willingness to accept the organized sanitation and to pay the sewage fees, the economical sustainability of the proposed designs is doubtful over the longer time duration due to the significant capital and operation costs affecting the sewerage payment value.