Should water recycling be introduced?

[Fart_Gas]

I am planning to create maps with a severe lack of water. For example, I'd like to make desert cities based on Australian mining towns, and I'd also like to make an Uluru scenario. Such maps will have no sea connections, only a railroad and highway (or in the case of Uluru, just a highway).
These towns recycle what little rainwater they get, as the groundwater is either not present, contaminated or salty. In the case of Uluru, they desalinate the groundwater, but Cities:Skylines makes no distinction between salty and fresh water.

Water recycling ought to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. It processes sewage and produces clean water. The only downside is that it would use a lot of electricity and have constant truck traffic. This is because to recycle sewage into clean drinking water, it needs to be filtered, undergo UV treatment and have Hydrogen peroxide added.

A modern water recycling plant is very expensive, perhaps only to be unlocked at a bigger city level. Smaller cities should make do with a wetland park. The wetland uses up the sewage, and the resulting water still needs some treatment, but still far less treatment than raw sewage. This wetland park should hook up with both the sewage and water pipes, and it should cover a large area.

[scpool1986]

In the Green Cities DLC they have water treatment plants that clean the water more than the standard wastewater treatment plants. I’ve noticed I can have them right next to my water pumps with no water contamination unlike with the standard ones. Haven’t been brave enough to create some kind of system that uses 100% recycled water yet.

[scpool1986]

After seeing this I decided to run a short term experiment that will probably turn into a long term short scale than long term large scale experiment. I started a small settlement off of my main city called "test town" that would get all its water from a separate source than the rest of the city. It's water source would be a wide deep canal segment used as a catchment basin for an eco wastewater treatment plant, as pictured below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029017

I connected the eco wastewater treatment plant to the rest of my city with the 2 water pumps pictured being connected to a loop in the "test town" area emptying through a standard drain pipe into the river and a fresh water outlet for flood control on the basin. Pictured below is the facility confirmation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029035

In theory the eco wastewater treatment plant cleans the wastewater clean enough for it to be discharged without any negative effect in most waterways, almost net zero water pollution. Below is short term proof of concept.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029076

I'm going to keep this going for a while and maybe go into a large scale experiment with this to see where it goes.

[atozcf]

I belive it should'nt be. First of all, the game would become very complicated for begginers. Though there are obviously many factors and reasons why they should add water recycling, there are also many factors and reasons for many other things that need to be added. There are many trash mods out there on workshops. Of course excluding the trusted modders, ninjanoobslayer or grapplehoeker. There should also then be ground water pipes which get water just like normal water pipes. True there are some in the workshop, but it's not very high quality and does not do it's job right. There should also be sewage treatment plants that dont contaminate water themselves. There should also be a more efficient green energy system and an uncontaminated water system. The thing is, Cities: Skylines is missing alot of things. Which is why it can never be 100% realistic even if you get all the DLC's. As for your map making, make sure that people who build can actually have a way of getting water. No good making a map with no resources.

[scpool1986]

I lived in a place where they had a "gray water" system where recycled water was used for watering high demand locations like parks and golf courses. Other than that I agree with you. Opening it up for others to mod could lead to a literal flood of buildings that are said to do one thing but do something completely different or even would poison your entire city. As for my little experiment sorry if I somehow offended but it was meant more of an example of if there is a will there is a way. I opened my eyes on how complex it is just running it for a neighborhood of less than 300 having to balance out the input from the wastewater treatment plant with the output from the water pumps and keep everything in the basin. Far too much for a beginner and I even felt a little overwhelmed by it all. There is also the little fact that my experiment wouldn't work in a new city because there is no source to use for the initial water unless you are pumping from a river to fill the basin and if that's the case why not pipe it in and give the cims fresh water instead of second hand? My experiment was also based on a feed source from strictly residential and commercial waste water. I've always built my cities with seperate systems for residential/commericial and industrial. There's no knowing what else is in the system from the industrial aspect of the wastewater inflow. As it is now there are too many complications that could go wrong and could result in spreading water pollution through your city or even resulting in a flooding situation if done wrong. Plus, as I forgot to mention, this is only possible with a DLC (Green Cities) and if you get a flooding situation going it'll be either wait for it to evaporate or another DLC, which just costs the player more money in the long run and complicates the whole thing even more.

As for Cities: Skylines ever being 100% realistic they would have to do a lot of reengineering to get it remotely close to that. As it is now it's an okay game to play and relax but there is always room for improvement in how the game handles certain elements.

[Fart_Gas]

Originally posted by atozcf:

As for your map making, make sure that people who build can actually have a way of getting water. No good making a map with no resources.

I want to create the real life challenges of desert cities. Some desert cities are relatively large (e.g. Riyadh, Tehran). Such cities get all their water from groundwater, and there is only a certain quantity which can be sustainably extracted. To compensate for the lack of water, fertile land and forests, I will make the whole map rich in either oil or minerals. I don't want to simulate desert cities which get their water from the conventional means, which is from bodies of fresh water (e.g. Cairo, Las Vegas).
The additional challenge of maps where the only resources are loads of oil or minerals is that these run out. The city will need to plan a transition to unspecialised industry or to reliance on offices.

[Fart_Gas]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

After seeing this I decided to run a short term experiment that will probably turn into a long term short scale than long term large scale experiment. I started a small settlement off of my main city called "test town" that would get all its water from a separate source than the rest of the city. It's water source would be a wide deep canal segment used as a catchment basin for an eco wastewater treatment plant, as pictured below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029017

I connected the eco wastewater treatment plant to the rest of my city with the 2 water pumps pictured being connected to a loop in the "test town" area emptying through a standard drain pipe into the river and a fresh water outlet for flood control on the basin. Pictured below is the facility confirmation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029035

In theory the eco wastewater treatment plant cleans the wastewater clean enough for it to be discharged without any negative effect in most waterways, almost net zero water pollution. Below is short term proof of concept.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029076

I'm going to keep this going for a while and maybe go into a large scale experiment with this to see where it goes.

I don't have DLCs so I just let the treated wastewater get diluted with ocean water in this video below (please turn subtitles on, the audio failed). Fun fact, the vanilla game's sewage treatment plant gets 85% of human solid waste out of the water, which what US federal regulations stipulate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tv6EKHWxd0).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1341537573

What you've done is technically water recycling, so perhaps I should just wait for Cities:Skylines 2 for a true water recycling plant.

[scpool1986]

Originally posted by Fart_Gas:

Originally posted by scpool1986:

After seeing this I decided to run a short term experiment that will probably turn into a long term short scale than long term large scale experiment. I started a small settlement off of my main city called "test town" that would get all its water from a separate source than the rest of the city. It's water source would be a wide deep canal segment used as a catchment basin for an eco wastewater treatment plant, as pictured below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029017

I connected the eco wastewater treatment plant to the rest of my city with the 2 water pumps pictured being connected to a loop in the "test town" area emptying through a standard drain pipe into the river and a fresh water outlet for flood control on the basin. Pictured below is the facility confirmation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029035

In theory the eco wastewater treatment plant cleans the wastewater clean enough for it to be discharged without any negative effect in most waterways, almost net zero water pollution. Below is short term proof of concept.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359029076

I'm going to keep this going for a while and maybe go into a large scale experiment with this to see where it goes.

I don't have DLCs so I just let the treated wastewater get diluted with ocean water in this video below (please turn subtitles on, the audio failed). Fun fact, the vanilla game's sewage treatment plant gets 95% of human solid waste out of the water, which what US federal regulations stipulate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tv6EKHWxd0).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1341537573

What you've done is technically water recycling, so perhaps I should just wait for Cities:Skylines 2 for a true water recycling plant.

I didn't know the vanilla wastewater treatment plant processing capabilities was that high. I could have sworn that someone told me that it was 85%. Hmm, learn something new every day. As for a Cities: Skylines 2 with more realistic buildings like an actual water processing facility that would be awesome. I know of nowhere that takes water directly from a river and sends it to the people to drink. Hell, where I live doesn't even do that and most of our water sources are in the mountians 10-15 miles from the closest town.

[Fart_Gas]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

Originally posted by Fart_Gas:

I don't have DLCs so I just let the treated wastewater get diluted with ocean water in this video below (please turn subtitles on, the audio failed). Fun fact, the vanilla game's sewage treatment plant gets 85% of human solid waste out of the water, which what US federal regulations stipulate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tv6EKHWxd0).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1341537573

What you've done is technically water recycling, so perhaps I should just wait for Cities:Skylines 2 for a true water recycling plant.

I didn't know the vanilla wastewater treatment plant processing capabilities was that high. I could have sworn that someone told me that it was 85%. Hmm, learn something new every day. As for a Cities: Skylines 2 with more realistic buildings like an actual water processing facility that would be awesome. I know of nowhere that takes water directly from a river and sends it to the people to drink. Hell, where I live doesn't even do that and most of our water sources are in the mountians 10-15 miles from the closest town.

Most of New York City's tap water comes from reservoirs in the Catskill mountains, places which are hard to access and surrounded with pristine wilderness. This water isn't treated - most of the tapwater contamination in New York City is due to pipe problems. I've been to New York City - the water there doesn't taste bad and it didn't make me sick.
My tour guide in Istanbul told me that the city's water still gets to the city via Byzantine-era aqueducts, but because of agricultural pollution, they can't drink the unboiled tap water like their ancestors used to.

The tap water where I live is treated well enough for one to drink safely out of the tap. Even though Sydney's water supply comes from reservoirs in pristine wilderness (and they are shut off to the public to further reduce contamination), the untreated water has Giardia and Cryptosporidium. The pathogens were traced to silt which washed into the reservoirs following heavy rains. Our soil somehow contains more pathogens than the Catskill Mountains soil. On top of that, there is coal in the areas of the reservoirs, so even though the construction of the reservoirs forced the mining to stop, Sydney's water treatment also has to clear out acid mine drainage and coal leachates. In fact, Sydney's water treatment needs to be thorough that some people boil the tap water to boil out the bleach (I don't).

By the way, your friend is correct. Turns out the US Federal standards for sewage treatment is to remove 85% of human solid waste, and the vanilla game's sewage treatment plant only goes that far.