Development of methods and tools for the integrated management of drinking water quality

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More stringent regulations for monitoring and protecting source water in water treatment operations and for water delivered by distribution systems create a need for more information about drinking water quality. Maintaining safe microbiological water without compromising the chemical water quality is one of the biggest challenges facing the drinking water industry. This challenge is all the more important given the increasing vulnerability and contamination of water sources, the difficulty of operating treatment plants in high source water quality variability contexts, and the complexity of distribution networks. This Alliance Grant is complementary to the Industrial Research Chair (IRC-M. J. Rodriguez) recently renewed for the next five years. The Alliance grant will support the development of methods and tools needed for the assessment and monitoring of drinking water quality from source to tap.The research projects respond to the specific research and development needs of partners over the next five years. It presents a multidisciplinary research program with three themes: 1) Development of surrogates for water quality assessment; 2) Source tracking and emerging methods for microbiological water quality; and 3) Impacts of infrastructure and hydraulics on drinking water quality. The research requires the expertise of team members in water quality monitoring and assessment, water treatment processes, chemical and microbiological water quality, urban water hydraulics and water quality modelling. This Alliance partnership is designed to promote the training of highly-qualified personnel (HQP) through master's and doctoral theses, and also provides opportunities for postdoctoral and undergraduate students. The results are intended for use by our partners during planning and routine operational tasks. Benefits also include better cost/benefit outcomes of financial investments in assessment and monitoring of water quality. It is expected that outcomes of this Alliance proposal will strengthen Canada's position worldwide in the development of decision-making tools for drinking water quality.