The management of water resources is crucial for sustainable development, necessitating innovative solutions to address the increasing demand for safe water. Alternative approaches must be adopted to effectively engage young generations in understanding the importance of water resources. This chapter reports on an experiment that aimed to promote sustainability education by linking wastewater treatment and reuse with an educational garden. In particular, an undertaking was executed to establish a decentralized wastewater treatment system wherein purified water was employed for the purpose of irrigation. The study’s primary focus is on the association between urban water management, wastewater recycling, and environmental education. The study has two distinct components. The first segment discusses three examples of projects that have employed urban wastewater treatment and reuse to generate environmental education materials using various approaches. The second component features a case study of a public high school in Casablanca, where students participated in a questionnaire and participatory workshops to design an educational garden. The study’s outcomes include a proposed educational garden design that will be presented to the relevant authorities and project partners.

Using wastewater in response to water-related challenges from climate variation has gained significance. Various sophisticated technologies have been developed to meet the demand for wastewater treatment and reuse. Graywater, an intrinsic component of wastewater, is acknowledged for its practical potential in the context of reuse. Decentralized wastewater treatment systems, exemplified by Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors (MBBRs), have emerged as efficient alternatives in urban settings. By comparing the physicochemical analyses conducted in the three treatment units and evaluating the treatment efficiency of each unit, we will first establish the validity of the MBBR system for treating and recycling graywater, achieving up to 98% elimination rates for BOD5. Subsequently, the possibility of optimizing the system will be explored by evaluating the different treatment stages of MBBR reactors.

Urban water scarcity and climate change pose significant challenges for sustainable development, particularly in rapidly expanding metropolitan areas. In cities like Casablanca, these pressures also threaten the preservation of cultural heritage sites such as traditional public bathhouses (Hammams). This study investigates how Hammams can integrate sustainable water management solutions in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11), focusing on the treatment and reuse of graywater. This study compares three graywater treatment systems, a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR), a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR), and a Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR), evaluated through literature review and dimensioning calculations, and also integrates an existing treatment plant in Berlin that functions as a real-scale laboratory. The comparison is based on a set of technical, economic, and environmental criteria used for comparative engineering design assessment and evaluation for the selected Hammam water reuse applications. All systems are technically feasible but show distinct trade-offs. The SBR has the lowest energy demand and highest cost savings, the MBBR offers a compact and simple design, and the MBR provides the highest effluent quality at a higher energy cost. Heat recovery provides a significant thermal energy recovery potential but is reported separately from the electrical energy demand of the treatment systems.