ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Environmental Management 82 (2007) 155166

www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Use of GIS in siting stabilization pond facilities

for domestic wastewater treatment
Alexandra Gemitzia,b, Vassilios A. Tsihrintzisb,, Odysseas Christouc, Christos Petalasb
a

Department of Water Resources Management, Regional Authority of Eastern Macedonia & Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece
b
Laboratory of Ecological Engineering and Technology, Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering,
Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
c
Geoinfo Co., Applied Geological Surveys and Research, G. Lambraki 133, 54352 Thessaloniki, Greece
Received 14 May 2005; received in revised form 3 November 2005; accepted 13 December 2005
Available online 29 March 2006

Abstract
Geographic information systems (GIS) use is presented in the problem of siting areas for construction of natural systems such as
stabilization ponds (SPs) for domestic wastewater treatment. For this purpose, several variables, such as topography, land use, type of
geological formation, distance to major rivers or lakes, distance to existing cities and villages, existence of environmentally protected
areas, mean minimum monthly temperatures and required wastewater efuent characteristics were analyzed with the GIS, in order to
accept or reject a particular area within a region. The method is applied in the region of Thrace (Northeast Greece) at the municipal level.
The required area for SP systems was calculated in each of the 36 municipalities of Thrace (including two islands, Thassos and
Samothraki) as a function of the population of each municipality, temperature and local wastewater efuent discharge criteria. Based on
the GIS analysis, suitable locations were identied in each municipality rst, and then the total required surface area of these systems was
compared to the available surface area of each municipality, in order to decide whether SP systems could be a viable solution to the
wastewater management problem in the particular region. In that way the present methodology offers a fast and simple method to check
the suitability of new areas for construction of such systems.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Geographic information systems; Stabilization pond systems; Site selection

1. Introduction
The problem of wastewater treatment in Greece is
becoming more exigent as it is related to the quality
impairment of both surface and groundwater resources.
Local authorities in highly urbanized areas have coped
with the problem by constructing large conventional
wastewater treatment plants. Several of them today need
to be expanded and/or upgraded as population grows and
regulations for pollutant emissions become stricter. About
half of the population of Greece, mostly in the urbanized
areas, is today served with such plants.

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +30 25410 78113.

E-mail addresses: agkemitz@env.duth.gr (A. Gemitzi),

tsihrin@otenet.gr (V.A. Tsihrintzis), geoinfo@hol.gr (O. Christou).
0301-4797/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.12.022

In rural areas, however, where there are no sewage

treatment units, wastewater goes to septic tanks.
A common practice is also to illicitly discharge septic tank
overow to adjacent streams or storm sewers. A proposed
solution for wastewater treatment in such areas is the
construction of stabilization pond (SP) systems, which
combine low-cost, low-maintenance, simple and reliable
operation and high removal efciencies. These systems are
more appropriate for small to medium communities, where
the resources and the skilled personnel required for the
operation of conventional systems are often limited (Mara
and Pearson, 1986, 1987). Furthermore, SP systems could
be an excellent alternative for the production of efuents
that can be reused for irrigation (WHO, 1989)
In recent years, the geographic information systems (GIS)
technology has been used in environmental sciences for siting
landll facilities using exclusionary and non-exclusionary

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criteria (Siddiqui et al., 1996; Kontos et al., 2003), for

evaluating groundwater pollution vulnerability (Lake et al.,
2003), or for watershed studies (Tsihrintzis et al., 1996, 1997;
Aspinall and Diane, 2000; Tong and Chen, 2002; Mitchell,
2005), among other applications.
In this study a methodology for siting areas for natural
wastewater treatment systems, such as SPs, is presented,
which is based on a selection process that takes into
account both environmental and design criteria, topography, land use, type of geological formation, distance to
major rivers or lakes, distance to existing cities and villages,
mean minimum monthly temperatures, the existence of
environmentally protected areas, population served, and
required wastewater efuent characteristics. The sizing
process for SP systems is based on the theory by Mara and
Pearson (1986, 1987), and Mara et al. (1992), and step-bystep procedures and nomographs developed by Economopoulou and Tsihrintzis (2002, 2004). Economopoulou and
Tsihrintzis (2002) employed the design equations and
methodology proposed by Mara and Pearson (1986,
1987), and Mara et al. (1992) for SP systems comprising
one anaerobic, one facultative and an optimum number of
maturation ponds, and tested the performance of these
systems in wastewater treatment through sensitivity analysis. The results showed that conventional designs for high
performance during winter offer very limited capacity gains
in summer without signicant pond oversizing. However,
simple seasonal rearrangement in the interconnection of

maturation ponds improved designs signicantly, resulting

in high performance during winter and several-fold
capacity increase during summer. The latter offers a
signicant edge to SP systems against conventional
treatment installations and other types of natural systems
in areas with increased summer populations. Design and
sizing of stabilization pond systems was based on two
pollutants, i.e., total coliforms and 5-day biochemical
oxygen demand (BOD5). The entire procedure results in
the development of specic nomographs, which are used to
calculate surface area requirements for SP facilities as a
function of wastewater temperatures and inuent and
efuent characteristics.
The methodology was applied to the region of Thrace,
Northeast Greece (Fig. 1). Two islands were also included, Thassos and Samothraki. Thassos does not belong
administratively to Thrace but was included in the
study because of its proximity to this region. The study
area is a rural part of the country with a surface area of
8500 km2, Mediterranean type of climate with dry and
hot summers (Petalas, 1997), and small villages spread
in a wide area. The Mediterranean climate and the
population distribution in small communities, together
with the lack of wastewater treatment facilities in most
parts of the region (except in the three urban centers
Xanthi, Komotini and Alexandroupolis) make Thrace an
especially favored area for the establishment of natural
treatment systems, such as SP.

Fig. 1. Location map showing the study area.

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2. Methodology
2.1. General
The process involves the creation and analysis of several
grids of different themes (Siddiqui et al., 1996; Northwood
Technologies Inc. and Malconi Mobile Ltd., 2001). The
GIS based methodology resulted in various thematic maps,
which satisfy specic suitability, environmental and socioeconomic criteria. For each criterion, there are two major
discrete categories, i.e., those that include all areas suitable
for natural treatment system siting and the ones unsuitable
for the specied purpose, i.e., the process applies exclusionary criteria (Kontos et al., 2003). A map was created,
based on a grid le, for each suitability criterion, and a nal
composite map was then produced by overlapping all
individual grids. The result is a composite map, which
highlights the areas that satisfy all suitability criteria.
The GIS software used for the analysis of all vector data
is the MapInfo Professional ver. 7.5. Raster data processing and grid creation and analysis were performed using
Vertical Mapper ver. 3. Topographic, demographic, land
use and hydrologic data for the study area is part of the
GIS database GR SurveyData for Greece (Geoinfo Co.,
1998). Variables analyzed with the GIS included: slope,
land use, distance to existing roads or railways, geological
formation, distance to major rivers or lakes, distance to
existing cities and villages, mean minimum monthly
temperatures of record, the existence of protected areas
such as the European Natura 2000 network (Das et al.,
1997), National Parks and the Ramsar convention on
wetlands (Greek Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works, 1986, 1996). Specic criteria used
for each variable are discussed in the appropriate sections.
Produced results are presented in the form of a grid that
shows the accepted and rejected sites for the construction
of SP systems in Thrace, based on the GIS analysis.
The nal step in the present work was the estimation of
the required area for SP systems based on the mean
minimum monthly temperatures of record, the population
of each municipality and the required wastewater efuent
discharge criteria, according to the methodology proposed
by Economopoulou and Tsihrintzis (2002, 2004). The
required areas of each municipality were compared to the
suitable areas that resulted from the GIS analysis, in order
to accept SP systems as a solution to wastewater treatment
problem for each one of the examined municipalities.
2.2. Variables and criteria
For each variable mentioned, a grid le was created for
use in the analysis. The whole process was divided in two
parts: the rst dealt with the creation of a grid for each
variable while the second dealt with grid analysis. To
increase the speed of the nal analysis, for each variable,
the created grid showed only the areas of interest, i.e., those
that satised the criteria for the specied variable. In that

157

way, the rest of the area in the study region could be

ignored and was not processed.
The scale of capture of the topographic data was
1 : 250 000 and the Digital Elevation Model produced for
the study area had a cell size of 60  60 m (Fig. 2a). The
same cell size was adopted for all other grids for the other
variables. It was necessary to start an initial examination of
such an extended area in such a scale, as any attempt to
process data for the entire area of interest in a more
detailed scale or by applying non-exclusionary criteria,
would require enormous computational effort and it would
prove to be very time consuming. The results of this initial
siting process can be the input to more detailed studies at a
ner scale, focused on the specied areas pointed out by the
present study. Therefore, this study is considered to be at
the master plan level. Alternatively, a siting process
applying non-exclusionary criteria, involving assignment
of factor weights to the individual criteria, could be
adopted (e.g., Gemitzi et al., 2006), while analyzing the
areas selected by this study at the ner scale. In any case,
however, the use of exclusionary criteria results in a stricter
and thus a safer decision. Therefore, it was selected in this
study, as more appropriate for a master plan level.
2.3. The slope grid
For SP systems to have an effective operation, the area
should have a relatively mild topography. Mild slopes
would result in higher hydraulic residence times and thus
higher pollutant removal capacity (Economopoulou and
Tsihrintzis, 2002, 2004). Steeper areas would not be
economically appropriate because they would require
excessive excavation. Thus, a 5% slope was considered as
the maximum slope value (Figs. 2b and c). Areas with
higher slope values were excluded from further consideration, as not appropriate for SP system siting.
2.4. The hydrogeological and tectonic setting
In order for SP systems to have the minimum impact on
the groundwater resources, it was necessary to examine the
hydrogeological setting of the study area. The process
involved digitization of the hydrogeological map 1 : 200 000
provided by the Greek Geological Survey and the
identication of two major categories: those that were or
had the potential to become groundwater resources
(aquifers) and those that undoubtedly could be considered
as aquitards, with no potential as groundwater resources
(Fig. 3a). Areas with little or no data available were
assigned to the rst category (aquifers), in order to
minimize the possibility of aquifer pollution. Areas of the
rst category were thought as inappropriate for SP systems
and were excluded from the grid analysis (Fig. 3a).
It should be mentioned herein that, from the hydrogeological point of view, an area is considered as suitable
for installation of such facilities, not only from the absence
of any aquifer formation, but also from the absence of

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major tectonic structures, as it is generally accepted that

even an aquitard may well carry sufcient water quantities
in the presence of faults and fractures. However, the
tectonic structure of each one of the above formations
cannot be examined at a small scale and it was left for
future examination, only in the areas of interest, at a more
detailed scale.
With regards to seismic activity, the study area shows
only minor seismic events and most of it is classied in
Zone 1 of the new seismic hazard map of Greece (OASP,
2004). According to this classication, Zone 1 has a value
of active soil acceleration of 0.16 g (where g is acceleration
of gravity). This is the minimum value for Greece. Only
Samothraki island in the study area belongs to Zone 2, i.e.,
active soil acceleration of 0.24 g. Despite the low seismic
activity of the study area, buffer zones of 500 m along both
sides of major faults (Fig. 3b) were assigned, so as to
prevent the location of the proposed facilities to be on or
too close to known faults.
2.5. The land use grid
Any potential treatment facility must have as little
impact as possible on the existing population. With this in
mind there have been distinguished only two land use
classications as acceptable for SP treatment systems: nonforested areas, which are agricultural or populated areas
and grasslands (Fig. 4a). The rest of the land use areas were
rejected, as they were covered by sparse or dense forest. In
order to include the land use variable in the nal analysis, a
land use grid was created based on a land use map of
1 : 500 000 (Fig. 4b).
2.6. The distance to existing cities and villages
In order to avoid any inconvenient effects on the existing
populated areas due to the presence of a wastewater
treatment system, it is necessary to locate such facilities
at least 500 m away from villages or city limits. The
Greek law does not specify minimum distances from city
limits for wastewater treatment facilities. This distance
was then selected based on the Greek Governmental
Ministry Decision 114218/97 (1997) for sanitary landlls.
Although the proposed facilities do not imply as serious
environmental risks as landll sites, for reasons related to
public opposition the same distance of 500 m from
residential areas was adopted. Accordingly, a 500-m buffer
was then created around existing populated areas (Fig. 4c)
and it was converted into a grid le used in the nal
analysis.
2.7. The distance to existing roads and railways
Fig. 2. (a) Digital Elevation Model 60  60 m of the study area; (b) slope
grid of the study area; (c) grid of selected areas with slope less than 5%.

Again, the Greek law does not specify minimum

distances of wastewater treatment facilities from roads
and railways. According to the Greek Law for sanitary
landlls (Governmental Ministry Decision 114218/97,

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159

Fig. 3. (a) Distinction of the hydrogeological formations to two major categories; (b) 500-m buffer zones along both sides of major faults in the study area.

1997), any proposed site should be at least 500 m away

from highways and railways. In the case of SPs, a smaller
distance of 300 m from highways and railways was
adopted, mainly for visual impacts. The presence of such
facilities does not have any signicant impact on trafc,
compared to the presence of a sanitary landll, which may
involve particle and dust transfer, and increased truck

trafc volumes. The 300-m limitation was not adopted for

small provincial roads, since the treatment facility has to
have access. A buffer zone of 300 meters was created then
on both sides of all highways present in the study area, as
well as for the railway (Fig. 5a). The road and railway
buffers were then converted to a grid le, which was used in
the nal grid analysis.

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160

Legend of Land Use

Fir dense
Spruce dense
Black pine dense
Black pine sparse
Scotch pine dense
Brutia pine dense

KOMOTINI

XANTHI

Beech dense
Beech sparse
Oak dense

ALEXANDROUNOLIS

SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND

THASSOS ISLAND

10 20km

Oak sparse
Deciduous sp.
dense
Evergreen veget.
dense
Evergreen veget.
sparse
Grassland
Non-forests

(a)

KOMOTINI

XANTHI

Legend

ALEXANDROUPOLN

Selected land
use areas
Non-forests
Grassland

SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND

THASSOS ISLAND
0 10 20km

N
E

W
S

(b)

LEGEND
Residential areas
500 meter buffer zone
surrounding residential
areas

XANTHI
KOMOTINI

ALEXANDROUPALIS

THASSOS ISLAND
0 10 20 km

SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND

N
W

E
S

(c)
Fig. 4. (a) Land use map of the study area; (b) grid showing the selected land use areas; (c) a 500-m built-up area buffer zone.

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550000me

600000 mE

650000 mE

700000 mE

4550000 mN

4600000 mN
4550000 mN

4600000 mN

300 meter buffer zone around

railways
300 meter buffer zone around
main roads

XANTHI

161

KOMOTINI

N
SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND

THASSOS ISLAND

0 10 20km
550000 mE

600000 mE

650000 ME

700000 mE

550000 mE

600000 mE

650000 ME

700000 mE

River

XANTHI

KOMOTINI
Vistonis Lake

ro

4500000 mN

sR

ive

Nestos

ALEXANDROUPOLIS

Ev

4550000 mN

500 meter buffer zones around

lakes, marshes and major
rivers

4550000 mN

4500000 mN

4600000 mN

4600000 mN

(a)

N
SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND

THASSOS ISLAND

0 10 20km

550000 mE

600000 mE

650000 ME

700000 mE

550000 mE

600000 mE

650000 ME

700000 mE

KOMOTINI

Vistonis Lake

(c)

r
ive
sR

belonging to the National Park of

Eastern Macedonia and Thrace

550000 mE

SAMOTHRAKI ISLAND W

THASSOS ISLAND
0 10 20km

4500000 mN

4500000 mN

ALEXANDROUPOLIS
Protected areas of the Natura 2000
network, the Ramsar Convention, or

Ev
ro

r
Nesto

s Rive

XANTHI

4550000 mN

4550000 mN

4600000 mN

4600000 mN

(b)

4500000 mN

4500000 mN

ALEXANDROUPOLIS

S
600000 mE

650000 ME

700000 mE

Fig. 5. (a) A 300-m road and railway buffer zone; (b) A 500-m river, lake and marsh buffer zone; (c) Areas that belong to the EU Natura 2000 network, or
the Ramsar Convention, or are designated as National Parks.

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2.8. The distance to major surface water bodies

Streams, rivers, lakes and the coastline offer the main
disposal options for efuents after treatment, if an
irrigation alternative is not possible. Thus, for practical
reasons, the proposed facilities should not be far away
from the efuent disposal area. However, according to the
EU directives for landll sites, a 500 m buffer zone should
be maintained around signicant surface water bodies. In
the study area such a zone has been created around lakes,
marshes and rivers of perennial ow, not only for
protecting surface waters from a possible leakage of
untreated wastewaters, but also for protecting the facilities
from ooding, (Fig. 5b). It should be noted here that
although a 500-m distance away from the major riverbeds
seems to be quite reasonable, it does not exclude the
ooding risk of an area. For this reason, detailed ooding
risk studies should be carried out for each new proposed
facility at the ner scale.

parks and protected areas, such as the National Park of

Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. As an example, this park
is a breeding and nesting place for rare aquatic birds and a
rest place for migrating species. There are found in the area
307 species of birds, among which 34 are endangered and
strictly protected, many species of mammals (20 species),
reptiles (31 species), insects (110 species), and rare
vegetation. The later includes riparian forests, such as the
riparian forest along the Delta of River Nestos, and
freshwater and coastal wetland species, among which eight
are rare and/or endangered (Pavlikakis and Tsihrintzis,
2003, 2006).
Natural wastewater treatment systems such as SPs may
well exist within protected area boundaries, but only in
zones of low protection; they cannot be installed in areas
having the maximum protection (e.g., Zone A of the
National Park of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace). Thus,
these regions were excluded (Fig. 5c). A grid le was
created then for the areas mentioned above, for use in the
nal analysis.

2.9. The environmental protection status

2.10. Analyzing the variables
Thrace is an area of great biodiversity. It contains
wetlands of international interest, such as the Delta of
River Evros, the Delta of River Nestos, and the lakes
Vistonida and Ismarida. Several areas belong to the
European network Natura 2000 (Das et al., 1997) and
should be protected according to the EU conservation
policy or national and international treaties, such as the
Ramsar Convention of 1971. There also exist national

Having all the different variables examined in the study

in grid format, the nal analysis was carried out using the
GridQuery function provided by the raster GIS program
Vertical Mapper ver. 3. The program analyses each one of
the 60  60 m grid cells for each one of the variables
mentioned in the previous sections. If all the predened
suitability criteria are met then the particular grid cell is

Fig. 6. Grid presenting selected areas for stabilization ponds.

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163

accepted for use as a SP treatment system. The result is a

grid le showing the areas that meet all the previously
specied criteria and are suitable for natural treatment
systems, such as SPs (Fig. 6).

3. Sizing and performance criteria of natural wastewater

treatment systems
In this nal part of the study the calculations are focused
on each one of the 36 municipalities of the area. In order to
calculate the required area for SPs in each municipality, the
graphical solutions provided by Economopoulou and
Tsihrintzis (2002, 2004) were adopted. As mentioned, these
solutions are based on theory by Mara and Pearson (1986;
1987), and Mara et al. (1992). The graphical solutions
calculate the unit area requirements (m2/capita) of SPs
designed based on BOD5 and total coliform removal
criteria, as a function of wastewater temperature, population served and inuent quantity and quality, i.e., weak,
typical or strong municipal wastewaters (Economopoulou
and Tsihrintzis, 2002, 2004). In this study a typical
municipal wastewater was used, i.e., the inuent had the
following characteristics: unit ow 150 L capita1 d1,
BOD 330 mg L1, total coliform number 108/100 mL. The
SP systems are designed to meet two efuent quality
characteristics (performance criteria):
Performance criterion I corresponds to a BOD efuent
concentration of 30 mg L1 (e.g., for efuent discharge into
small rivers) (Greek Ofcial Gazette 859/86, 1986);
Performance criterion II corresponds to a total coliform
efuent concentration of 1000/100 mL (e.g., for efuents
used for irrigation or discharged near the coastline in
bathing waters, according to the Greek Ofcial Gazette
859/86, 1986). As far as this performance criterion is
concerned, other standard values of coliform efuent
concentration are also proposed in the relevant literature;
for example, Tsagarakis et al. (2004) suggest 1000 fecal
coliforms/100 mL for irrigation of crops and 10 000 fecal
coliforms/100 mL for irrigation of wooden areas or
discharge into surface water bodies where public contact
is not allowed. Thus, the value of 1000/100mL total
coliforms in the efuent, which also agrees with current
local government decisions for the Region of Thrace
(Greek Ofcial Gazette 859/86, 1986), seems reasonable.
Finally, this value is also suggested by WHO (1989).
For these two performance criteria and inuent characteristics, the graph of Fig. 7 gives unit areas (m2/capita)
for a SP system comprising an anaerobic, a facultative and
an optimum number of maturation ponds.
It should be mentioned herein that all lakes in the area
are protected by the Natura 2000 network and are areas of
the highest environmental protection (e.g., in the National
Park of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace) classied as Zone
A (Greek Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and
Public Works, 1996), and consequently cannot directly
receive efuent discharges.

Fig. 7. Stabilization pond sizing graph.

The sizing process in the present work involved the

calculation of the maximum area required in each
municipality in order to accommodate all weather conditions. According to Mara and Pearson (1986, 1987), Mara
et al. (1992) and Economopoulou and Tsihrintzis (2002),
the design of SPs is sensitive to pond temperatures. In the
winter, the mean daily pond temperature is warmer by
23 1C than the mean daily air temperature. Thus, to
provide a margin of safety, the design pond temperature
should be taken equal to the mean minimum monthly air
temperature of record for the coldest winter month for the
particular area. Eleven weather stations in the study area
provide air temperature records. The time series for the
period 19662001 was used and the mean minimum
monthly air temperature for this period for each station
was calculated. In order to compute the mean minimum
monthly air temperature for each grid cell in the entire
study area, the following temperaturealtitude relationship
was prepared through regression analysis from the 11
stations:
x 470  y=88:5; R2 0:86,

(1)

where y is the elevation above mean sea level (m); x the

mean minimum monthly air temperature (1C); R2 in the
square of correlation coefcient. Using Eq. (1), a grid of
the mean minimum temperatures of the study area was
created based on the digital elevation model (Fig. 8).
The process concluded by computing, from Fig. 7, the
maximum unit area requirements (m2/capita) for SP
treatment systems for each municipality, in order to meet
the corresponding performance criteria for the minimum
temperatures.
Table 1 presents the results of the GIS analysis (columns
1 and 2), showing the fraction of the municipal area (both
in surface units and % of the total municipal area) suitable
for the specied purpose according to the predened
criteria and the total area required for SP treatment

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A. Gemitzi et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 82 (2007) 155166

Fig. 8. Grid of the mean minimum monthly air temperatures for the time period 19662001.
Table 1
Available and required surface area for stabilization pond systems for each municipality.
Municipality name

Available area for stabilization pond system

installation based on the GIS analysis (km2)

Percent of the total

municipality area (%)

Total area required (ha) for

stabilization pond systems

Kyprinou
Vissis
Didimotichou
Metaxadon
Orestiados
Orfea
Souiou
Trigonou
Arrianon
Kechrou
Organis
Sapon
Komotinisa
Maronias
Neou sidirochoriou
Filliras
Amaxadon
Avdiron
Vistonidos
Thermon
Kotilis
Satron
Selerou
Egirou
Iasmou
Sostou
Mikis
Xanthisa
Stavroupolis
Feron
Alexandroupolisa
Samothrakis
Traianoupolis
Ticherou
Topirou
Thasou

97.3
58.2
166.0
89.0
113.3
107.0
20.3
130.8
46.4
7.8
0.0
143.7
78.6
113.4
10.8
42.4
0.9
55.0
12.8
0.0
0.0
0.3
0.3
16.1
2.2
0.2
4.4
9.2
27.8
87.3
108.0
31.2
26.5
9.2
27.9
28.0

72.3
34.2
47.8
47.2
43.1
16.6
4.4
32.9
19.4
N/A
0.0
47.9
22.3
39.2
12.5
17.2
2.5
34.2
8.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
1.1
8.5
1.0
0.1
N/A
6.0
N/A
21.4
16.8
17.3
16.2
4.2
9.0
7.3

4.3
10.6
23.2
7.2
23.6
11.6
12.8
11.7
9.8
N/A
N/A
11.5
77.2
9.7
3.7
13.1
2.5
4.5
10.2
N/A
N/A
1.9
5.5
5.0
9.2
11.9
N/A
75.2
N/A
11.8
70.3
5.5
4.2
5.6
15.6
22.7

N/A: SPs are not suitable for the specied municipality due to the low minimum temperatures.
a
Cities with existing conventional wastewater treatment systems. Stabilization pond systems can be used for upgrading existing treatment plants.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
A. Gemitzi et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 82 (2007) 155166

165

Fig. 9. Municipalities where natural wastewater treatment systems, such as stabilization ponds, are a viable solution.

systems, according to the population of the municipality

(column 3). The comparison of the areas in Table 1
(columns 1 and 3) shows, based on the GIS analysis,
whether the required area for each municipality is
available, in order to accept natural treatment systems,
such as SPs, as a solution to the wastewater treatment
problem for each municipality. The nal results are
presented in Fig. 9.
4. Discussion and conclusions
This study presents a siting at a master plan level of
areas suitable for SP wastewater treatment system installation using the GIS technology. The methodology was
applied to Thrace (Northeast Greece), an area of
approximately 8500 km2. In order to cover the entire study
area, it was necessary to work at a small scale
(1 : 200 0001 : 250 000, except for the land use data
available only at scale of 1 : 500 000). A more accurate

study can be done applying the same methodology at the

selected areas (Fig. 6) using ner scale maps and applying
non-exclusionary criteria.
The method applied derives from the coupling of the
GIS technology and a sizing methodology for SP treatment
systems using design methodology and efuent discharge
criteria. The GIS technology was used in order to create
and analyze several grids of different themes and then
highlight the areas of interest, i.e., those that satisfy all the
relevant criteria. The sizing and performance method
calculates the area requirements based on BOD5 and total
coliform efuent discharge criteria as a function of
temperature and population. The combination of the
above two methodologies, at the municipal level, shows
that it is quite simple to check whether natural treatment
systems, such as SPs, can be an alternative wastewater
treatment option for each one of the examined municipalities and to calculate the maximum area required for
such facilities.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
166

A. Gemitzi et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 82 (2007) 155166

In conclusion, it is believed that the present study offers

a quite simple and fast way to examine large areas and to
highlight possible locations for installation of natural
treatment systems, such as SPs, using only exclusionary
criteria, as the application of non-exclusionary criteria
would require the adoption of ner scale data, more
complex computations, more time, and consequently could
not be appropriate for covering a large area at a master
plan level. However, the nal decision, at a municipal level,
should be based on more detailed examination on each
selected site, involving ranking all possible sites using nonexclusionary criteria, and taking into account the opinion
of the local communities, which play perhaps the most
important role in siting such facilities.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the Regional Authority of
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace for the support throughout
this study. They also gratefully acknowledge the Institute
of Geological and Mineral Exploration of Greece (IGME,
East Macedonia and Thrace Branch) for offering the
necessary hydrogeological data of the study area, and,
especially, the geologist Mr. Eleftherios Dimadis for his
valuable consultation.
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