Water environments have to face solid or liquid discharges containing a complex mixture of various organic and inorganic substances.
Wastewater reclamation and reuse projects have been developed in arid and semiarid lands as an essential response to growing water needs.
The treated water was used for recharging the ground water or irrigating some specified cultures, public green areas and sports facilities such as golf courts or football fields. Through pathways such as drinking from aquifers or the food chain,
humans are confronted with the threat of residual pollutants in effluents. In arid and semiarid lands,particularly where the water resources are scarce, the detection of contaminants and the measurement of their harmful impact has become a major issue in environmental risk assessment. Therefore, in a primary step,
the quality of treated water, along the wastewater treatment process, was investigated by the mean of conventional physicochemical parameters.
Moreover, in vitro bioassays systems were used to evaluate the biological effects of wastewater samples on mammalian cells.
Heat Shock Protein 47 assay for stress response and E-screen assay for estrogenic activity were carried out to assess the risk of wastewater samples from an activated sludge treatment system plant in semi-arid environment.