Purification Resistance Index: a new water quality assessment method toward drinking water production

Abstract

Water quality assessment plays a significant role in ensuring the availability of clean and safe water. The Water Quality Index (WQI) model method has been developed to provide a basis for assessing water quality by integrating various water quality parameters. However, existing WQIs do not “actively” consider the difficulty of water treatment from raw water to specific water use scenarios. This study proposes a novel model framework, named as Purification Resistance Index (PRI), quantitatively evaluating not only the exceedance of pollutants but also how difficult they can be removed in the water treatment process. The framework is built based on the conventional drinking water treatment processes, with sub-indices for coagulation-sedimentation (rc), filtration (rf), disinfection (rd), and advanced treatment (ra). The model considers appropriate weights assigned to each sub-index to calculate the purification resistance, resulting in a comprehensive index for water quality evaluation. Case studies on nationwide and citywide water source reservoirs demonstrated the applicability of PRI approach. PRI breakthrough the traditional water quality risk assessment paradigm and extents to engineering region and provide useful tools for water source supervision, drinking water treatment plant planning and updating, operation control, and other purposes. Water authority, water utility and municipal design institute will all benefit. It is open for more localized practices validation and discussion.