ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on studies involving Life cycle assessment (LCA) applications in wastewater in the context of developing countries. It provides an interesting discussion related to LCA regionalization, including a case study for developing countries from Latin America. LCA has been proved to be a suitable instrument to assess the environmental effects of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in both design and operation phases. It was noted that LCA applications to wastewater in the context of developing countries have attracted an increasing amount of interest from research groups. Sustainability has become a core issue of wastewater management. The implementation of sustainable wastewater management systems is a major challenge in developing countries, as sanitation data from these countries indicates critical conditions of population in terms of incomes, health, hygiene, and social issues. Improvements provided by the regionalization of LCA models are very useful to support sustainable solutions in wastewater management in developing countries.
