DEVELOPMENT OF A DECISION MAKING TOOL FOR SELECTION OF WASTE WATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY BASED ON URBAN WATER REUSE

Fresh water is being polluted drastically due to adulteration of wastewater discharged by urban population. Wastewater needs a proper treatment before being discharged into the environment or reuse by urban population to maintain urban water cycle and long-term sustainability. Several wastewater treatment technologies (WWTT) have been introduced till date but it is difficult to implement them due to various factors like high installation cost and less awareness among the population to reuse of treated effluent. Information technology can play an important role in this analysis and decision making problems in wastewater systems. Decision making tool (DMT) may be useful to help in the selection of wastewater treatment technology (WWTT). For the purpose, six WWTT viz. Activated Sludge Process (ASP), Up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB), Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR), Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR), Waste Stabilization Pond (WSP), Trickling Filter (TF) and seven water reuse options have been considered viz. irrigation, industrial, non-potable household supply, gardening & recreational, firefighting and drinking water. Respective twelve parameters which based on Indian standards for water reuse options are considered. In the present paper, a framework has been proposed and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based application development is attempted for wastewater treatment technology selection. For preliminary validation of the application, available data of Varanasi city (U.P., India) has been used. Three technologies are suggested for Assi Nala wastewater treatment based on reuse potential and pollution load.