Optimizing drinking water treatment in response to variable source water quality in Calgary, Alberta: integrating source characterization and process design

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The drinking water for at least 58% of the largest urban communities in Canada and 66% of American water supplies originates from forested watersheds. The health of Canada's forests and the waters they supply is threatened by severe wildfires (which are increasing in part because of climate change) and forest harvesting for fiber or for pre-emptive risk reduction to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of disturbances such as wildfires. Some of these pressures may result in increasingly variable and deteriorated water quality that can challenge water treatment processes beyond their capacity, necessitating potentially cost-prohibitive treatment changes to ensure provision of safe drinking water. Threats to drinking water source quality are particularly significant for communities with high quality forested source watersheds, such as those that serve the City of Calgary. They must optimize drinking water treatment by finding an "ideal" balance between active source water protection (SWP) by forest management and treatment technology investments. Here, the water quality impacts of wildfire and forest harvesting on drinking water treatability will be studied. State-of-the-art source water characterization techniques will be used to describe temporal variability of key water quality attributes that drive treatment process design and operation. Key threats to source water quality will be identified, watershed attributes contributing to those threats will be identified, and state-of-the-art water quality characterization and water treatment technologies and/or approaches will be evaluated. This work will contribute essential research, generate technological innovation, and train highly qualified personnel who can effectively apply emerging scientific tools to develop much needed SWP and drinking water treatment strategies, technologies, and policies. Long-term benefits include the provision of strategies for integrating source watershed assessment and protection with treatment design and operations. Improved SWP and treatment approaches reduce the economic cost of water related illnesses, and enable water utility adaptation to the effects of land disturbances and changing climate.