title: An integrated performance assessment framework for water treatment plants.
abstract: An innovative framework for the performance assessment of a traditional water treatment plant (WTP) is presented that integrates the concepts of reliability, robustness, and Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA). Performance assessment for a WTP comprised of three units (i.e., unit 1: Coagulation/Flocculation and Sedimentation; unit 2: Filtration, and unit 3: Disinfection) was conducted. Performance functions for units 1, 2, and units 1 and 2 combined, were constructed by integrating turbidity robustness indices. Performance function for chlorine disinfection was developed based on the difference between achieved and required CT values. A health-based performance function was developed by comparing the target daily infection rate to the site-specific infection rate. It was used to identify whether the health-based target was met during the failures of units 1 to 3. Results obtained from the proposed performance functions can be used by operators to ensure that multiple barriers perform successfully under variable conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Kejiang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Gopal
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Achari
authors.forename: Rehan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sadiq
authors.forename: Cooper H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Langford
authors.forename: Mohammed H I
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Dore
mesh_terms: D004203:Disinfection; D005374:Filtration; D005427:Flocculation; D005872:Giardia / Q000302:isolation & purification; D009391:Nephelometry and Turbidimetry; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid; D014871:Water Microbiology; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*