Showing papers on "Water supply published in 2022"

Emerging Organic Contaminants in Global Community Drinking Water Sources and Supply: A Review of Occurrences, Processes and Removal

Abstract: Human-sourced organic compounds like pesticides, pharmaceuticals, surfactants, personal care products, food, and industrial additives are used daily, across multiple sectors, globally. These compounds when found in the environment in undesirable or detrimental concentrations, are grouped and termed as emerging organic contaminants (EOCs). Groundwater are typically major sources of the community drinking water plants. EOCs can get introduced in the community drinking water sources via numerous point and non-point sources such as agricultural runoff, artificial recharge, or effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Several EOCs have been recently reported from community drinking water sources across the world. EOCs like carbamazepine, atrazine, caffeine, and metolachlor are frequently detected contaminants in drinking water sources. These EOCs are known to pose a severe risk to human health to these contaminated water ingesting communities. Conventional drinking water treatment plants fail to remove EOCs from the sources. These EOCs, along with other organics, lead to the formation of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in community drinking water treatment plants. Researchers have explored various remedial measures ranging from in-situ treatments to ex-situ treatments. Researchers are presently exploring various emerging remedial measures like membrane separation or nanotechnology. All the treatment measures have their specific advantages and disadvantages. However, most of the remedial measures are investigated on a lab-scale. This fact highlights the need for proper field-scale experiments before being successfully used in community treatment plants to provide clean water to the masses to achieve sustainable development goal (SDG) 6. • Pesticides, PPCPs, surfactants, food, and industrial additives are primary environmental EOCs. • Industry, septic tank, urban effluents and agricultural fields are primary EOC sources. • EOCs are persistent and bioaccumulative through food chain. • Ex-situ and in-situ remediation techniques have limitations in community water supply.

IoT-Based Solutions to Monitor Water Level, Leakage, and Motor Control for Smart Water Tanks

Abstract: Today, a large portion of the human population around the globe has no access to freshwater for drinking, cooking, and other domestic applications. Water resources in numerous countries are becoming scarce due to over urbanization, rapid industrial growth, and current global warming. Water is often stored in the aboveground or underground tanks. In developing countries, these tanks are maintained manually, and in some cases, water is wasted due to human negligence. In addition, water could also leak out from tanks and supply pipes due to the decayed infrastructure. To address these issues, researchers worldwide turned to the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology to efficiently monitor water levels, detect leakage, and auto refill tanks whenever needed. Notably, this technology can also supply real-time feedback to end-users and other experts through a webpage or a smartphone. Literature reveals a plethora of review articles on smart water monitoring, including water quality, supply pipes leakage, and water waste recycling. However, none of the reviews focus on the IoT-based solution to monitor water level, detect water leakage, and auto control water pumps, especially at the induvial level that form a vast proportion of water consumers worldwide. To fill this gap in the literature, this study presents a review of IoT-controlled water storage tanks (IoT-WST). Some important contributions of our work include surveying contemporary work on IoT-WST, elaborating current techniques and technologies in IoT-WST, targeting proper hardware, and selecting a secure IoT cloud server.

Risk Assessment of Water Supply Network Operation Based on ANP-Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method

Abstract: The water supply network is of great importance for a city, and it faces various risks such as leaks and breaks, so its risk level needs to be evaluated regularly. To propose a new and effi...

Risk Assessment of Water Supply Network Operation Based on ANP-Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method

Abstract: The water supply network is of great importance for a city, and it faces various risks such as leaks and breaks, so its risk level needs to be evaluated regularly. To propose a new and efficient method to evaluate the risk level of water supply network operation, an evaluation index system of water supply network has been established, the proportion of each evaluation factor is calculated by Analytic Network Process (ANP). On this basis, the model based on the ANP-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is established, and the risk level of the water supply network in the Yangtze River Delta is evaluated through a program compiled by the authors. The spatial maps are used to show the impacted pipelines clearly. The results showed that most of the pipelines in the Yangtze River Delta are in a good state, and only some pipelines need to be repaired.

Evaluating potential impacts of land use changes on water supply-demand under multiple development scenarios in dryland region

Abstract: • We estimated possible impacts of future land use changes on water supply & demand. • Nearly 90% Yulin would bear endangered water supply–demand risk by 2050. • Water supply–demand risk increased from undersupplied to endangered in 2005–2050. • Mitigation strategies were put forward from agriculture, ecology and urbanization. Water scarcity greatly hinders sustainable development goal agenda and regional agriculture development in dryland regions. As we know, land use and cover changes are strongly responsible for spatial–temporal evolutions of water resource. However, there is little explicit understanding of how spatial patterns of future dryland use will affect the water supply–demand risk. To answer this question, this study took Yulin city of China, a typical dryland region, as a case study area, and firstly estimated its 2020–2050 land use patterns under three different scenarios, covering Natural Increased Scenario (NIS), Food Security Scenario (FSS) and Economic Development Scenario (EDS), with the help of the path-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model as well as Markov-chain model. Furthermore, this study employed InVEST model to explicitly investigate spatial–temporal evolutions of water supply, water demand and water supply–demand risk in all scenarios. The estimated results indicated that the largest expanding/shrinking land use types were grasslands/croplands in NIS, croplands/grasslands in FSS and built-up lands/croplands in EDS during 2020–2050, respectively. By 2050, all projected land use changes only slightly affected regional water supply (the fluctuation of ∼ 5% compared to that in 2020), but greatly increased by ∼ 57% regional water demand. Particularly, strong land use changes would likely put nearly 90% regions of Yulin city at endangered water supply–demand risk in 2020–2050. Ecological land and built-up land would easier suffer from critically endangered water supply–demand risk. In view of these modeled and analyzed results, some potential mitigation strategies of water resource utilization, such as developing water-efficient eco-agriculture, adjusting agricultural structures and enriching revegetation diversity, were suggested to coordinate future areal human-nature relationships. This study could provide some valuable information for dryland agricultural development, water-environment management and regional policy decision-making.

Efficient Use of Water in Tailings Management: New Technologies and Environmental Strategies for the Future of Mining

Abstract: Nowadays, many major copper mining projects in desert areas with extremely dry climates, as in northern Chile and the southern coast of Peru, process sulfide ores at high production rates; in some cases over 100,000 metric tonnes per day (mtpd), generating large amounts of tailings, that are commonly managed and transported to tailings storage facilities (TSF) hydraulically using fresh water. Considering the extremely dry climate, water scarcity, community demands, and environmental constraints in these desert areas, the efficient use of water in mining is being strongly enforced. For this reason, water supply is recognized as one of the limiting factors for the development of new mining projects and for the expansion of the existing ones in these areas. New water supply alternatives, such as sea water desalinization, direct use of sea water, or water recovery from tailings, represent the strategy developed by the mining industry to deal with this growing scarcity. The focus of this paper is the possibility of applying different water supply technologies or a combination of these, implementing improved water management strategies that consider: environmental issues, technical issues, stringent regulatory frameworks, community requests and cost-effective strategies, that result in a reduction of freshwater make-up water requirements for mining (m3 per metric tonnes of treated ore).

Passive In-Line Chlorination for Drinking Water Disinfection: A Critical Review

Abstract: The world is not on track to meet Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 to provide universal access to safely managed drinking water by 2030. Removal of priority microbial contaminants by disinfection is one aspect of ensuring water is safely managed. Passive chlorination (also called in-line chlorination) represents one approach to disinfecting drinking water before or at the point of collection (POC), without requiring daily user input or electricity. In contrast to manual household chlorination methods typically implemented at the point of use (POU), passive chlorinators can reduce the user burden for chlorine dosing and enable treatment at scales ranging from communities to small municipalities. In this review, we synthesized evidence from 27 evaluations of passive chlorinators (in 19 articles, 3 NGO reports, and 5 theses) conducted across 16 countries in communities, schools, health care facilities, and refugee camps. Of the 27 passive chlorinators we identified, the majority (22/27) were solid tablet or granular chlorine dosers, and the remaining devices were liquid chlorine dosers. We identified the following research priorities to address existing barriers to scaled deployment of passive chlorinators: (i) strengthening local chlorine supply chains through decentralized liquid chlorine production, (ii) validating context-specific business models and financial sustainability, (iii) leveraging remote monitoring and sensing tools to monitor real-time chlorine levels and potential system failures, and (iv) designing handpump-compatible passive chlorinators to serve the many communities reliant on handpumps as a primary drinking water source. We also propose a set of reporting indicators for future studies to facilitate standardized evaluations of the technical performance and financial sustainability of passive chlorinators. In addition, we discuss the limitations of chlorine-based disinfection and recognize the importance of addressing chemical contamination in drinking water supplies. Passive chlorinators deployed and managed at-scale have the potential to elevate the quality of existing accessible and available water services to meet “safely managed” requirements.

Socio-psychological determinants of Iranian rural households' adoption of water consumption curtailment behaviors

Abstract: Dealing with a growing population and a shortage of drinking water is a major challenge for politicians and planners. A key factor in ensuring a sustainable water supply is water conservation at the household level, which can increase productivity and save water resources. Therefore, promoting water consumption curtailment behavior will contribute significantly to reducing the global water crisis, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Water consumption curtailment behaviors depend on individuals' encouragement to choose and adopt voluntary behaviors and cannot be enforced by any political or planning power. In order to encourage water conservation those social and psychological factors should be considered that influence individuals to participate or adopt water consumption curtailment behaviors. Therefore, the study of factors influencing rural households' water consumption curtailment behaviors is of great importance. This study aimed to describe the socio-psychological factors influencing water consumption curtailment behaviors among rural households in southwestern Iran. The extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB) was used as a theoretical framework in this study along with descriptive norms (DN), moral norms (MN), habits, and justification. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that ETPB can explain 35% and 54% of intention and water consumption curtailment behaviors among rural households in Iran. Our findings may assist policymakers in reducing domestic water consumption.

Socio-psychological determinants of Iranian rural households' adoption of water consumption curtailment behaviors

Abstract: Dealing with a growing population and a shortage of drinking water is a major challenge for politicians and planners. A key factor in ensuring a sustainable water supply is water conservation at the household level, which can increase productivity and save water resources. Therefore, promoting water consumption curtailment behavior will contribute significantly to reducing the global water crisis, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Water consumption curtailment behaviors depend on individuals' encouragement to choose and adopt voluntary behaviors and cannot be enforced by any political or planning power. In order to encourage water conservation those social and psychological factors should be considered that influence individuals to participate or adopt water consumption curtailment behaviors. Therefore, the study of factors influencing rural households' water consumption curtailment behaviors is of great importance. This study aimed to describe the socio-psychological factors influencing water consumption curtailment behaviors among rural households in southwestern Iran. The extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB) was used as a theoretical framework in this study along with descriptive norms (DN), moral norms (MN), habits, and justification. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that ETPB can explain 35% and 54% of intention and water consumption curtailment behaviors among rural households in Iran. Our findings may assist policymakers in reducing domestic water consumption.

Over the weekend: Water stagnation and contaminant exceedances in a green office building

Abstract: The role of water stagnation (~60 hours) in a 2-story commercial office building on building water quality was studied (January to February 2020) for three weekends. Chemical and biological parameters including pH, total chlorine, metals concentrations, Legionella spp. and total cell count were analyzed to understand the differences in water quality at the building entry point, and at eleven fixtures within the building’s copper plumbing. Consistently, the total chlorine concentration decreased over the weekend (p < 0.05), was greatest at the building entry point (maximum 0.8 mg/L), and was lowest within the plumbing (maximum 0.28 mg/L). As expected, total cell count levels were much greater on Monday compared to Friday (p < 0.05) at every sampling point. Legionella spp. was found to be highest at the fixture with no use recorded during sampling. Throughout the building, copper and lead levels increased over the weekend (p < 0.05). Copper exceedances above the federal health-based drinking water limit (1.3 mg/L) were localized to four fixtures, branched from the same riser, that shared a pattern of variable use. Flushing was conducted at one location with consistent copper exceedances but 54 minutes were required to reach the public water supply. Flushing was not a viable copper remediation method as it would need to be repeated every 19 hours or require discarding more than 50 gallons before use. No prior water testing was conducted in the buildings’ life. The results suggest that water quality varies significantly over the week. This has implications for water testing plans and interpretation of data collected from buildings.

Water quality assessment and evaluation of human health risk of drinking water from source to point of use at Thulamela municipality, Limpopo Province

Abstract: Water quality has been linked to health outcomes across the world. This study evaluated the physico-chemical and bacteriological quality of drinking water supplied by the municipality from source to the point of use at Thulamela municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa; assessed the community practices regarding collection and storage of water and determined the human health risks associated with consumption of the water. Assessment of water quality was carried out on 114 samples. Questionnaires were used to determine the community's practices of water transportation from source to the point-of-use and storage activities. Many of the households reported constant water supply interruptions and the majority (92.2%) do not treat their water before use. While E. coli and total coliform were not detected in the water samples at source (dam), most of the samples from the street taps and at the point of use (household storage containers) were found to be contaminated with high levels of E. coli and total coliform. The levels of E. coli and total coliform detected during the wet season were higher than the levels detected during the dry season. Trace metals' levels in the drinking water samples were within permissible range of both the South African National Standards and World Health Organisation. The calculated non-carcinogenic effects using hazard quotient toxicity potential and cumulative hazard index of drinking water through ingestion and dermal pathways were less than unity, implying that consumption of the water could pose no significant non-carcinogenic health risk. Intermittent interruption in municipal water supply and certain water transportation and storage practices by community members increase the risk of water contamination. We recommend a more consistent supply of treated municipal water in Limpopo province and training of residents on hygienic practices of transportation and storage of drinking water from the source to the point of use.

The stochastic decision making framework for long-term multi-objective energy-water supply-ecology operation in parallel reservoirs system under uncertainties

Abstract: The long-term multi-objective reservoir operation (LTMORO) involving multiple competitive goals such as energy, water supply and ecology protection is usually implemented under uncertain and changeable environment. Conventional methods usually obtain trade-off solutions and select most preferred one by multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) under deterministic environment. However, these methods are difficult to handle real-world reservoir system where multiple uncertainties exist in criteria performance values (PVs) and weights (CWs). In this paper, framework for solving reservoir operation and MCDM problem under various uncertainties is developed. A novel multi-objective method based on shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA) is proposed to obtain high-quality trade-off solutions. Besides, hybrid utility forms based on TOPSIS, grey correlation analysis (GCA) or other models are impacted by subjectivity of combination coefficient, resulting in extra uncertainties for MCDM. To this end, the stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) model is developed by constructing new utility function based on SMAA-2 and modified GCA. The modified GCA helps to offset the uneven distribution problem in conventional version and enhance differentiation of utility function in SMAA-2. Moreover, deterministic CWs are obtained based on minimum deviation principle and two types of stochastic CWs following probability distributions are used to estimate CWs uncertainty. The risk caused by uncertain information propagating from PVs and CWs to decision results is also quantified. Finally, efficiency of established framework is tested by conducting three numerical experiments compared with deterministic GCA and SMAA-2. Results indicate that, compared with deterministic models, the novel framework provides decision maker with more reliable decision support and quantified risk information. The novel SMAA-GCA model produces relatively high probabilities for solutions to obtain their respective ranks compared with that of SMAA-2. It is effective to reduce impact of complex uncertainties on MCDM for LTMORO under stochastic environment.

Drinking Water Quality and Public Health in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal: Coliform Bacteria, Chemical Contaminants, and Health Status of Consumers

Abstract: Residents of Nepal's Kathmandu Valley draw drinking water from tube wells, dug wells, and stone spouts, all of which have been reported to have serious water quality issues. In this study, we analyzed drinking water samples from 35 tube wells, dug wells, stone spouts, and municipal tap water for bacterial and chemical contaminants, including total and fecal coliform, aluminum, arsenic, barium, beryllium, boron, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, fluoride, iron, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, lead, antimony, selenium, thallium, uranium, vanadium, and zinc. We also asked a sampling of households who used these specific water sources to rate the taste of their water, list any waterborne diseases they were aware of, and share basic health information about household members. This survey provided us with information from 146 households and 603 individuals. We found widespread bacterial contamination of water sources, with 94% of sources having detectable total or fecal coliform. Nepal Drinking Water Quality Standards and World Health Organization (WHO) Drinking-Water Guidelines or health-based values were exceeded for aluminum (max = 0.53 mg/L), arsenic (max = 0.071 mg/L), iron (max = 7.22 mg/L), and manganese (max = 3.229 mg/L). The distribution of water sources with high arsenic, iron, and manganese appeared to be associated with floodplain deposits. Mixed effects logistic regression models were used to examine the interactions between social factors and water contaminants and their effects on household members' health. Consumers of water sources with both high and low concentrations of manganese were less likely to have a positive attitude towards school than those whose water sources had moderate concentrations of manganese. Social factors, especially education, played a large role in predicting individual health outcomes. Household taste ratings of drinking water were not correlated with iron or manganese concentrations, suggesting that WHO's reliance on aesthetic criteria for these contaminants instead of formal drinking-water guidelines may not be sufficient to protect public health.