Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management

“Clean water and sanitation” is listed as one of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and implementing circular economy principles in the water sector has been widely regarded as an important approach in achieving this goal. In the era of Industry 4.0, research and practice in the di...

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Autores principales:	Qinglan Liu, Longjian Yang, Miying Yang
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	circular economy Industry 4.0 digital technologies smart water water sustainability fuzzy Delphi Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ac27245c717546348c8acda6a21e156d
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:ac27245c717546348c8acda6a21e156d
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ac27245c717546348c8acda6a21e156d2021-11-11T19:34:03ZDigitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management10.3390/su1321118682071-1050https://doaj.org/article/ac27245c717546348c8acda6a21e156d2021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11868https://doaj.org/toc/2071-1050“Clean water and sanitation” is listed as one of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and implementing circular economy principles in the water sector has been widely regarded as an important approach in achieving this goal. In the era of Industry 4.0, research and practice in the digitalisation of the water sector to create a smart water system have attracted increasing attention. Despite the growing interest, limited research has been devoted to how digital technologies might enhance circularity. In practice, smart water systems often fail to promote circularity in such aspects as water reuse and resources recovery. This paper aims to identify the main barriers to implementing circularity in the smart water management system in Zhejiang, China. The research adopts a mixed research method that includes a literature review to identify the potential barriers from the existing studies, a case study to determine the most critical barriers in practice, and a fuzzy Delphi method to reach a consensus on the crucial barriers. The research identified 22 main barriers to implementing circular economy in smart water management. The barriers are divided into three categories: infrastructure and economic, technology, and institution and governance. The results show that the barriers related to recycling technologies, digital technology know-how, and the lack of CE awareness raise the most concern. Our findings also indicate that experts are interested in the decentralized wastewater treatment system. This research provides significant insights that practitioners, researchers, and policymakers can use in developing and implementing digital-based CE strategies to reduce water scarcity and pollution.Qinglan LiuLongjian YangMiying YangMDPI AGarticlecircular economyIndustry 4.0digital technologiessmart waterwater sustainabilityfuzzy DelphiEnvironmental effects of industries and plantsTD194-195Renewable energy sourcesTJ807-830Environmental sciencesGE1-350ENSustainability, Vol 13, Iss 11868, p 11868 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	circular economy Industry 4.0 digital technologies smart water water sustainability fuzzy Delphi Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350
spellingShingle	circular economy Industry 4.0 digital technologies smart water water sustainability fuzzy Delphi Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Qinglan Liu Longjian Yang Miying Yang Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
description	“Clean water and sanitation” is listed as one of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and implementing circular economy principles in the water sector has been widely regarded as an important approach in achieving this goal. In the era of Industry 4.0, research and practice in the digitalisation of the water sector to create a smart water system have attracted increasing attention. Despite the growing interest, limited research has been devoted to how digital technologies might enhance circularity. In practice, smart water systems often fail to promote circularity in such aspects as water reuse and resources recovery. This paper aims to identify the main barriers to implementing circularity in the smart water management system in Zhejiang, China. The research adopts a mixed research method that includes a literature review to identify the potential barriers from the existing studies, a case study to determine the most critical barriers in practice, and a fuzzy Delphi method to reach a consensus on the crucial barriers. The research identified 22 main barriers to implementing circular economy in smart water management. The barriers are divided into three categories: infrastructure and economic, technology, and institution and governance. The results show that the barriers related to recycling technologies, digital technology know-how, and the lack of CE awareness raise the most concern. Our findings also indicate that experts are interested in the decentralized wastewater treatment system. This research provides significant insights that practitioners, researchers, and policymakers can use in developing and implementing digital-based CE strategies to reduce water scarcity and pollution.
format	article
author	Qinglan Liu Longjian Yang Miying Yang
author_facet	Qinglan Liu Longjian Yang Miying Yang
author_sort	Qinglan Liu
title	Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
title_short	Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
title_full	Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
title_fullStr	Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
title_full_unstemmed	Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management
title_sort	digitalisation for water sustainability: barriers to implementing circular economy in smart water management
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/ac27245c717546348c8acda6a21e156d
work_keys_str_mv	AT qinglanliu digitalisationforwatersustainabilitybarrierstoimplementingcirculareconomyinsmartwatermanagement AT longjianyang digitalisationforwatersustainabilitybarrierstoimplementingcirculareconomyinsmartwatermanagement AT miyingyang digitalisationforwatersustainabilitybarrierstoimplementingcirculareconomyinsmartwatermanagement
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Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management

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