MONITORING OF TREATED DOMESTIC WASTE WATER QUALITY

Cyprus is experiencing severe water supply deficiency. Particularly in summer months the situation is aggravated mainly due to low precipitation, high evaporation and increased demands for irrigation and tourisms. The use of treated wastewaters for environmental purposes such as recharging aquifers, agricultural irrigation and municipal/ landscape is highly contributing in the scarcity problem. In Cyprus there are 8 large urban plants and 25 small community plants for domestic waste treatment. Various chemical analysis including Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), suspended solids, anions, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, toxic metals, pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are contacted to ensure the quality of the treated wastewater. Instrumental techniques like ion chromatography, ICP, GC-MS and HPLC-fluorescence are used to determine ions, metals, pesticides and PAH,'s. In this study, the results of these analyses are presented for treated urban wastes. Heavy metals, boron, pesticides and PAHs are found in low concentrations ranging from low micrograms to milligrams per liter.