Evaluation of Reuse of Wastewater in Agriculture in Turkey: Outbreak Perspective of Covid-19

The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 has become a public health emergency worldwide. The virus, SARS-CoV-2 is spread by human to human transmission via droplets or direct contact. Although there is no evidence of its transmission from wastewater, the virus has been discovered in wastewater. Recent studies showed that SARS-CoV-2 is very sensitive to oxidants such as chlorine. Therefore, disinfection units of treatment plants need to be operated to avoid virus existence in the environment. Moreover, the disinfection process is vital if treated water is going to be used in irrigation. More than one-third of the effluents of wastewater treatment plants in Turkey reaches to agricultural irrigation facilities. The majority of these waste water treatment plants do not have a disinfection unit. Agricultural areas irrigated with treated wastewater have a rich crop pattern in Turkey. Almost half of these agricultural areas used to grow raw-consumable products. Therefore, disinfection units need to be operated properly and the facilities without disinfection unit should be revised. Moreover, regulations are not comprehensive to prevent public health in terms of reuse of wastewater in agriculture in Turkey. There are one regulation and one standard available considering reuse of wastewater in irrigation but neither of them is not covering indirect reuse of treated wastewater in the downstream. Therefore, to prevent public health it is needed to update regulations to include indirect reuse of wastewater.