Toward smart socio-resilient wastewater treatment: a narrative review of integrating social life cycle costing, smart technologies, and resilience for sustainable urban water management

This review demonstrates the interrelation of three critical components in wastewater treatment plant management: social life cycle costing (S-LCC), smart technologies, and resilience planning, aiming to develop an integrated and sustainable approach to urban water management that addresses existing program limitations. The review synthesizes external research on S-LCC in wastewater treatment, studies examining smart technology development, and resilience framework projects to identify effective strategies for leveraging synergies while highlighting significant methodological issues. Three main problems emerge in modern wastewater treatment management: lack of real-time social impact monitoring systems, insufficient integration of smart technologies with sustainability goals, and limited application of existing resilience planning frameworks. To address these gaps, the Smart Socio-Resilient Wastewater Treatment Plant (SSR-WWTP) framework is proposed as a comprehensive solution comprising four main components: an IoT sensorbased monitoring system for community impact observation, an AIbased model for social cost estimation, a resilience component enabling system adaptation and recovery from disruptions, and a decision support system integrating all components for optimized management. Although implementation costs for medium-sized facilities are estimated at €8.5- 12.3 million, economic projections indicate positive return on investment within six years through operational efficiencies and enhanced social performance. The framework represents a paradigm shift from reactive to proactive wastewater management, enabling operators to continuously assess community impact, predict system failures, and dynamically adapt strategies. Projected improvements include 30-40% enhancement in social outcomes and 20-25% increase in system resilience. The scalable SSRWWTP framework supports applications from large urban installations to simplified SSR-Lite versions for smaller facilities, facilitating water sector transition to circular economy principles, enhanced climate adaptation capabilities, and responsive regulatory development that integrates environmental standards with social service effectiveness.

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