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

加拿大至少58%的最大城市社区和美国66%的供水来自森林流域。加拿大森林及其供应的水域的健康受到严重野火(部分由于气候变化而增加)和森林采伐以获取纤维或先发制人地降低风险以减轻野火等干扰的潜在灾难性影响的威胁。其中一些压力可能导致水质日益多变和恶化，这可能会挑战水处理过程，使其超出其处理能力，从而有必要改变可能成本高昂的处理方法，以确保提供安全饮用水。对于拥有高质量森林水源分水岭的社区来说，饮用水水源质量受到的威胁尤其严重，例如为卡尔加里市提供服务的社区。他们必须通过在森林管理的积极水源保护(SWP)和处理技术投资之间找到“理想”的平衡，来优化饮用水处理。在这里，将研究野火和森林采伐对饮用水可处理性的水质影响。将使用最先进的水源表征技术来描述推动处理过程设计和运行的关键水质属性的时间变异性。将确定对水源水质的主要威胁，将确定造成这些威胁的分水岭属性，并将评估最先进的水质特征和水处理技术和/或方法。这项工作将有助于基础研究，产生技术创新，并培训高素质的人员，他们能够有效地应用新兴的科学工具来制定急需的水处理和饮用水处理战略、技术和政策。长期惠益包括提供将源头流域评估和保护与处理设计和运作相结合的战略。改进的水源保护和治疗方法降低了与水有关的疾病的经济成本，并使水的利用能够适应土地扰动和气候变化的影响。

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.