Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

System Components:
▪ Planning
▪ Design
▪ Operation of processes: collection, treatment (purification),
transmission, distribution.
Water Sources:
▪ Rain, snow
▪ Ground water: springs, wells
▪ Surface water: rivers, lakes, oceans

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Water
Supply
Sub-system

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

COMMON
SOURCES
OF WATER

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

Water Quality
✓ As consumers, we expect our water to be both esthetically
pleasing and safe to drink.

✓ Water that does not impart a taste or odor and is,

therefore, pleasant to drink, is called palatable.

✓ Water that is free of chemicals, microorganisms, and other

contaminants, and is, therefore, safe to drink, is called
potable.

✓ We expect our water to be both palatable and potable.

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

The following four categories are used to describe drinking-

water quality:
1. Physical: Physical characteristics relate to the quality of water for
domestic use and are usually associated with the appearance of water,
its color or turbidity, temperature, and, in particular, taste and odor.
2. Chemical: The chemical characterization of drinking water includes
the identification of its components and their concentrations.
3. Microbiological: Microbiological agents are important to public
health and may also be significant in modifying the physical and
chemical characteristics of water.
4. Radiological: Radiological factors must be considered in areas where
the water may have come in contact with radioactive substances. The
radioactivity of the water is of public health concern.
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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

❖ Physical water-quality parameters

Define those characteristics of water that respond to
the senses of:
Sight Taste Touch Smell
Parameters:
✓ Suspended Solids
✓ Turbidity
✓ Color
✓ Taste
✓ Odor
✓ Temperature

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

Impurities occur:
▪ At point of condensation
▪ Human activities : Industrial Domestic and Agri chemicals

Form of Impurities
✓ Suspended
✓ Dissolved
✓ Colloids

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

▪ Difference Between Dissolved, Suspensions and Colloidal Solutions

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

1- Suspended Solids
Sources of Suspended Solids

SS: Rarely found in groundwaters due to the natural

filtering capacity of soils.
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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

1- Suspended Solids
A) Impact of Suspended Solids:

✓ Aesthetically Displeasing
✓ Provide adsorption sites for chemical and biological
agents
✓ May be degraded organically resulting in
objectionable by products – e.g. methane
✓ May include disease causing organisms

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

1- Suspended Solids
B) Use
✓ Important parameter in wastewater.
✓ Used to measure the quality of wastewater influent
and effluent as well as monitor treatment processes.

Typical SS Values
▪ Marine waters 5-80mg/L
▪ River waters 0-200mg/L
▪ Stormwaters 80-100mg/L
▪ Raw sewage 200-350mg/L
▪ Treated sewage 100-200mg/L

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

1- Suspended Solids
Virtual Lab
Lab Experiment_1
Determination of TS, TDS and TSS in water

Click on this link and follow the instructions to conduct the

experiment virtually:-

https://ee1-nitk.vlabs.ac.in/environmental-engineering-1/exp/determination-of-
ts/simulation.html

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

2- Turbidity
✓ Test for turbidity is often performed of natural bodies
and potable water rather than SS. Nature of solids and
secondary effect is of greater importance.

✓ Turbidity is a measure of the extent to which light is

absorbed or scattered by suspended material. f(size and
surface characteristics of suspended material).

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

2- Turbidity
A- Sources:
▪ Erosion of clay, silts, rock fragments and metal oxides
▪ Vegetable fiber and microorganisms

B- Impact
▪ Aesthetically displeasing
▪ Creates adsorption sites for chemicals that cause taste
and odor
▪ Shield organisms from disinfection
▪ Interfere with light penetration in streams and lakes

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management
3- Colour

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

A- Sources 3- Colour

✓ Leaves, wood etc.. – pick up tannins, humic acid

leading to yellowish-brown colour.
✓ Iron oxides – reddish.
✓ Manganese Oxides – brown of blackish.
✓ Industrial Waste – textile and dyeing operations, pulp
and paper production, food processing, chemical
production, mining, and refining.

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management
3- Colour

B- Impact
✓ Aesthetically displeasing.
✓ Not suitable for many operations as textile and paper
production.
✓ True colour can exert a chlorine demand.

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management
4- Taste and Odor
Taste & Odor are closely related. Substances that produce an odor in
water often impart taste. The reverse is not often true.
A- Source:
✓ Metals, minerals, salts from soil.
✓ End products from biological reactions.
✓ Inorganic produce taste e.g. Alkaline – bitter taste; metallic salts
impart salty or bitter taste.
✓ Organics produce taste and odor – e.g. Petroleum-based products;
biological decomposition of organics (sulphur – rotten egg smell.)

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

4- Taste and Odor

B- Impact
✓ Aesthetically displeasing (associate odor and taste with
contamination).

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

5- Temperature
One of the most important parameters in natural surface waters.
It influences the number and type of species present and their rate of
activities; effect most chemical reactions; affect solubility of gases e.g
oxygen decrease with increase temp. 8mg/L @ 25 degree Celsius
A- Sources
✓ Influence by ambient temperatures i.e. surrounding atmos.
Shallow water bodies experience greater changes.
✓ Dissipation of waste heat by industries.
✓ Removal of forest canopy.

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Lecture_4: Water Quality Management

5- Temperature
B- Impacts
✓ Cooler waters have wider diversity of biological species.
✓ Biological activities reduces at lower temperature i.e. utilization of
food; growth; reproduction.
✓ Increase of 10 degree Celsius can result in double activities-
Secretion of oils and dead algal cells impart taste and odor.
✓ Reduction in oxygen levels affect fishes.
✓ Increase viscosity with decrease temperature.
✓ Maximum density occur at 4 degree Celsius.

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