Knowledge in Community Wastewater Treatment Derived from Environmental Techniques

Abstract

This paper the author examines local wisdom in relation to wastewater treatment in local community along the Palian River in Trang Province by employing environmental techniques. Environmental techniques include four major steps i.e., ecological values, law of change, recovery techniques and environmental sustainability auditing. Key player of this study is local people with experience and knowledgeable on wastewater in the communities of interest. The results suggest that the local wisdom in the community wastewater treatment is composed of some ecological values. The findings reveal that the functions of water in the Palian River are for consumption, agriculture, fishery, tourism, and transportation. There are two water components, which are the components of clean water and those of waste water. The sources of community wastewater are two fold, which are nature and human activities. The laws of change reveal that the alters of water can be described into two characteristics as the followings. First, the alters in functions of the water appear until the aquatic animals cannot survive, and the changes in the components of water that both influence and not influence the changes on the functions of water. The study finds two recovery techniques: the natural water treatment and the technological-based water treatment. The auditing on sustainability shows that there are two kinds of water quality auditing, which are 1) the water quality auditing based on observation of the water’s physical and biological characteristics, and its impact on human health, and 2) the water quality auditing through scientific methods