Accessibility of Sewage Treatment Plants - Benefits and Limitations Associated with Their Location Requirements

Facutly of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Krakow, Poland

^* Corresponding author: awojtowicz@pk.edu.pl

Abstract

Due to their specifics, municipal sewage treatment plants have highly specific location requirements. It is, without a doubt, a limitation in relation to the possibility of using these types of plants within an urban structure. On the other hand, in modern, intensively developing cities and the more and more intense incorporation of external areas into - sensu stricto - urban tissue, accessibility and a potentially attractive riverside location create new opportunities. They support new technological solutions that lessen the possible negative impact of such structures. The goal of this article is to highlight which characteristics related to location and other factors are responsible for the possibility of attractively incorporating sewage treatment plants into an urban structure, and which characteristics cause these structures to be excluded from opportunities enabling their wider spatial employment. Accessibility studies, as well as analyses of other elements will be performed using the comparative analysis method, focusing on a selection of examples of sewage treatment plants in large Polish cities. Conclusions about location conditions will be drawn on the basis of the study, which can serve to perform comparative analyses both in cases of sewage treatment plants in other cities, as well as other municipal technical infrastructure plants, whose location is dependent on their function.