Facilitators and Barriers of Global Water Reuse: A Systematic Literature Review

Centralized municipal water reuse implementation, particularly potable reuse, remains slow despite the need in many global locations to supplement conventional water supplies. Analyzing factors associated with implementation can enhance our understanding of successful water reuse design and implementation. We conducted a systematic analysis of 232 peer-reviewed journal articles on water reuse implementation, identifying and classifying influential factors as facilitators or barriers to success. The most cited facilitators included clearly defined and feasible regulations, public education and awareness programs, and drought conditions. Next, we analyzed case-level data by examining the relationships between factors, implementation outcome, and end use (potable vs nonpotable). The literature enabled analysis of 47 cases with data from 44 articles. When analyzing factor co-occurrence within similar cases (e.g., successful nonpotable cases), several unique combinations of factors resulted in implementation success (e.g., fostering partnerships with the industrial/agricultural sectors and increasing organizational capacity by improving existing infrastructure). Our analysis highlights preliminary recommendations for implementation success, as well as for future research to systematically collect data across cases. These recommendations will help to better understand the relative importance of each factor and causal relationships between factors, to ultimately identify comprehensive strategies for successful implementation.