Socio-Economic Impact (E)

This area of knowledge is constituted by three research groups:

• Environmental Economy Group of the University of Alcalá (E1)
• Group of the Water Institute and Natural Sciences of the University of Alicante (E2)
• UNESCO Professorship of Territory and Environment of the University Rey Juan Carlos I (E3)

The members of these groups are experts, as attested by their curricula vitae in Economy and Environmental Policy.

Table 4 summarizes their main research work fields.

The action lines of these groups in the socio-economic analysis of the reuse of treated waters comprise the assessment of benefits or avoided costs as opposed to other alternatives of resource management, the cost analysis of treatment and reuse infrastructures, the study of cost retrieval mechanisms and the monitoring of the national environmental legislation. The later is carried out in order to become acquainted with the national standards of quality of waters for later reuse that the Environmental Quality General Direction of the Ministry of Environment is currently working on, as well the distribution of competences among the administrations involved in water resources management. 

 This way, these groups can complement each other while sharing information about their respective results. For instance, the cost-benefit analysis of the Environmental Economy  Group of the University of Alcalá is the general framework of actuation of the other two groups but is greatly based on their work; the UNESCO Professorship monitoring of the incorporation of the reuse systems to future hydrological plans and the study of their public acceptance through plans of public participation will be essential for the cost/benefit analysis of the Environmental Economy  Group of the University of Alcalá; and the tendencies in legal protection standards studied by the UNESCO Professorship determine the cost of the technologies that will be assessed by the Water Institute of Alicante. The analysis of the financing mechanisms of the reuse will provide with the necessary information to complete the cost/benefit study and will be a starting point to understand other countries experiences and the Spanish tendencies.

Generally, it will be suggested the possibility of establishing a legal framework to regulate the different types of potential reuses, as well as an economic report that guarantees its observance.