Tehran Water Research Articles

Investigating the Causes of Delay in Construction of Urban Water Supply and Wastewater Project in Water and WasteWater Project in Tehran

It is obvious that providing drinking water in cities, especially in metropolises such as Tehran, as a political-social-economic center of the country is important. During the last decades, climatic changes, the decrease of raining, the increase of water harvesting from groundwater as well as the increase of population have intensified the importance of water in Tehran. Therefore, every change from water consumption to collecting, purifying and storing drinking water in the city reservoirs is highly critical. In the present study, the causes of delay in such projects have been determined based on experts' opinions about several concrete implemented reservoirs obtained by questionnaire and the related literature. Given to three classes pertained to such projects (employer, consultant and contractor), an initial questionnaire was provided to poll the experts' opinions and distributed among the sample of the study. In this regard, 45 Likert-scale questionnaires were equally distributed among three population; after gathering, the items with higher mean scores were selected for the main questionnaire (totally, 17 items). Using AHP method, the most important factors were identified and ranked through Expert choice Software. As the research findings revealed, failure of employer to pay to contractor timely, failure to obtaining the necessary permissions by employer before noticing to contactor to proceed, and uncertainty and buying project site by employer are the most important factors respectively.

Toxicity assessment of Tehran water treatment sludges using bioassay tests

The 48-, 72- and 96-h acute toxicity and 14-d chronic toxicity of the sludge of treatment plant No. 1, 3 and 5 were examined based on the survival percentage and fertility changes of Daphnia magna and Eisenia fetida. The highest percentage of D. magna death in the acute toxicity test appeared in treatment plant No. 1 sludge sample. The 48-h and 72-h LC50 of treatment plant No. 1 sludge on D. magna were calculated to be 86.81 and 44.307% volume of the sludge, respectively. The release of untreated sludge into the environment could adversely affect the life of organisms.

A new approach to water head estimation based on water inflow into the tunnel (case study: Karaj water conveyance tunnel)

The accurate estimation of groundwater head in tunnels is a critical issue in tunnelling and in designing the lining and its sealing potential. This study was conducted to estimate the actual groundwater pressure on the lining of the tunnel in the Karaj–Tehran water conveyance tunnel. High water pressure (over 400 m) was estimated from the water level in boreholes whereas low water pressure (5 m) was measured at piezometers installed in the tunnel. In this regard, estimation of the groundwater head based on the water inflow into the tunnel is considered as a new approach. Water head and permeability, as fundamental parameters for the estimation of water inflow into the tunnel, are estimated through analytical methods and experimental studies prior to the tunnel boring. Because the actual data for water inflow into the tunnel are available, the water head can be estimated based on the volume of infiltrated water. Using these techniques, the water pressure along the tunnel axis is estimated to be between 5 and 170 m in different zones. This method is recommended for water head estimation in other tunnels with similar geological properties.

Tehran Water Museum with the Performance-Oriented Approach to Bionic Architecture

Form and function of architecture in nature, is a process that is perceived as instinctive as the development of internal growth and creation. The most basic level of commitment to life that reveals itself in the form of materials. Architecture form and shape to the beat and rhythm of the invisible life, in fact, it is a process which gives the project structure and the structure of the plan. Every living organism is driven by unchangeable force. Trying to become more efficient form and function. In the natural area is very important that "performance" is defined as the process and relationship and "form" is defined as a result of this process. Forms of interaction with nature that takes shape and naturally goes in the direction of performance to match its relationship with the wider environment and in the surrounding territory. Methods and new ideas can be learned from nature. Generally architecture is defined as to imagine, design, understanding and build according to circumstances. These problems may in itself was fully functional and to varying degrees, reflecting the economic, political and social project. In any case, it seems that the status quo is not simply satisfying. For this reason, we seek a new agreement that they "answer the question" is called. Therefore, in this study, based on architectural features permit, trying to establish a performance-oriented architecture, nature-based design and natural patterns to be defined by Vitruvius

Risk assessment of haloacetic acids in the water supply of Tehran, Iran

Disinfection by-products are compounds occurring in drinking water as a result of reactions between disinfectants and impurities in raw water, and their occurrence has been a public health concern for the last four decades. Haloacetic acids (HAAs) are one of the major by-products of chlorination. The concentration and variation of HAAs was monitored in 540 samples taken from tap water in six water and wastewater districts of Tehran, Iran. Seasonal variation indicated that natural organic matter and HAA levels were much higher in the spring and fall seasons. The concentrations of HAAs in drinking water samples varied with water sources. They were higher in drinking water obtained from surface water. In this study, the analysis method of human health risk assessment with regard to exposure to HAAs by drinking water in Tehran was based on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) guideline. It was found from these studies that the risk to human health appears to be negligible.

Studying the Effect of Tunnel Depth Variation on the Specific Energy of TBM, Case Study: Karaj–Tehran (Iran) Water Conveyance Tunnel

The tunnel-boring machine ( TBM) is a common piece of equipment used in tunneling projects. For planning a mechanical excavation project, prediction of TBM performance and the specification of design elements such as required forces are critical. The specific energy of excavation (SE), i.e. drilling energy consumption per unit volume of rock mass, is a crucial parameter for performance prediction of a TBM. In this study, the effect of variation of tunnel depth on SE by considering the post-failure behavior of rock mass was investigated. Several new relations between SE and tunnel depth are proposed according to the statistical analysis obtained from Karaj–Tehran Water Conveyance Tunnel real data. The results showed that there is a direct relation between both parameters and .A polynomial equations are proposed as the best expression of the correlation between these parameters.

Evaluation of Pharmaceuticals Sewage Effects on the Chemical Properties of Surrounding Surface Waters around Tehran

This study investigates the effects of pharmaceutical industry sewage on effluent chemical characteristics of surrounding surface water in Tehran. The study was conducted using two in vitro methods and a method of environmental assessment. In vitro assessment and spatial analysis were conducted on inlet and outlet sewage of six pharmaceutical companies in different regions of Tehran. The results showed surveyed companies often use anaerobic treatment process method that reduces the environmental pollution, especially the reduction of negative effects on surface water around them.

Contribution of environmental media to cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis prevalence in Tehran: a focus on surface waters.

The occurrences of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in surface sources of drinking water in Tehran were monitored, using US EPA method 1623.1. The prevalence ratios (PR) of positive samples among other media (animal's stools, vegetables, and human's stools) were also estimated from literature data. The density of Giardia and Cryptosporidium in water samples were 0.129±0.069 cysts/L and 0.005±0.002 oocysts/L, respectively. Estimated PR in vegetables, animal stools, surface waters, and human stools were 6.65, 20.42, 21.05, and 4.28% for Cryptosporidium and 6.46, 17.13, 73.68, and 15.65% for Giardia, respectively. These reveal the importance of surface waters' and animal stools' roles in the prevalence of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis in Tehran's population. Giardia's prevalence in untreated surface waters in Tehran was found 3.5 times as much as Cryptosporidium while this found 2.3 times on a global scale. Moreover, the prevalence of giardiasis to cryptosporidiosis infections in Tehran's human population was 3.65. These values could be a clue to attribute the infections to the occurrence of parasites in surface waters. Significant (p<0.05) associations were observed between rainfalls and presence of Giardia (r=0.62) and Cryptosporidium (r=0.60) in surface waters. In autumn, rainfalls can increase the parasites occurrences in surface waters. Significant (p<0.05) difference on the density of parasites was found between some seasons using Kruskal-Wallis and multiple comparison tests. A significant correlation (r=0.86) between Giardia and Cryptosporidium densities also confirms the common sources of pollution in surface waters. Findings suggest that untreated surface waters in Tehran may be a potential route of human exposure to protozoan parasites.

Prediction of coagulation and flocculation processes using ANN models and fuzzy regression.

Coagulation and flocculation are two main processes used to integrate colloidal particles into larger particles and are two main stages of primary water treatment. Coagulation and flocculation processes are only needed when colloidal particles are a significant part of the total suspended solid fraction. Our objective was to predict turbidity of water after the coagulation and flocculation process while other parameters such as types and concentrations of coagulants, pH, and influent turbidity of raw water were known. We used a multilayer perceptron (MLP), a radial basis function (RBF) of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and various kinds of fuzzy regression analysis to predict turbidity after the coagulation and flocculation processes. The coagulant used in the pilot plant, which was located in water treatment plant, was poly aluminum chloride. We used existing data, including the type and concentrations of coagulant, pH and influent turbidity, of the raw water because these types of data were available from the pilot plant for simulation and data was collected by the Tehran water authority. The results indicated that ANNs had more ability in simulating the coagulation and flocculation process and predicting turbidity removal with different experimental data than did the fuzzy regression analysis, and may have the ability to reduce the number of jar tests, which are time-consuming and expensive. The MLP neural network proved to be the best network compared to the RBF neural network and fuzzy regression analysis in this study. The MLP neural network can predict the effluent turbidity of the coagulation and the flocculation process with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.96 and root mean square error of 0.0106.

Application of TBM operational parameters to estimate the drop modulus, case study: Karaj–Tehran water conveyance tunnel of Iran

The drop modulus is an important parameter to estimate the post peak behavior of rock mass. It is the slope for the softening stage of rock mass that related to quality of rock mass and confinement stress as increasing in the quality of rock mass and decreasing in the confinement stress can increase the drop modulus and it is true inversely. One of the most important applications of this parameter is to predict the rock burst, squeezing and etc because the mentioned phenomena are directly related to post peak behavior of rock mass. In this study, a new empirical method is proposed to estimate the drop modulus using the double shield TBM specifications of Karaj–Tehran water conveyance tunnel in Iran. It is estimated based on the penetration rate of TBM, the equivalent thrust per cutter and the torque of TBM. The result shows that there are inverse relations between the drop modulus of rock mass with the penetration rate and the torque of TBM and a direct relation between the drop modulus and the equivalent thrust per cutter. In this study, new power equations are proposed to estimate the drop modulus using the penetration rate and the equivalent thrust per cutter respectively. Also a new linear equation is suggested to estimate the drop modulus using the torque of TBM. Finally, the most useful equation to estimate the drop modulus is achieved using the ratio of the equivalent thrust per cutter to product of TBM penetration rate on torque of TBM because it is a function of three parameters.

A study on effect of individual creativity mediated by the time management on job performance of employees of Tehran water&amp; Sewage Company, region 1

In the modern age, the most important goal of an organization is to achieve a high degree of efficiency and effectiveness. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of Individual creativity on job performance with the mediation of time management in the water and wastewater Co. Tehran region 1. 202 sample employees were selected randomly representing the whole Population studied consisting of all of the employees of WWC, Tehran region 1. Data were collected using self-made questionnaire of the researcher. Validity of the questionnaire was approved by professors and experts of the Management department and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of reliability of the research was estimated 0.924 .descriptive statistics and inferential statistics and structural equation method are used to analyse data. Findings suggest that there is a positive and significant relationship between individual creativity and job performance of employees with mediatory of Time Management, while, individual creativity can predict job performance with a greater influence (a larger ?) relative to Time Management.

Occurrence of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in Tehran source water, municipal and hospital wastewaters, and their ecotoxicological risk assessment.

Pharmaceuticals are becoming widely distributed in waters and wastewaters and pose a serious threat to public health. The present study aimed to analyze non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in surface waters, drinking water, and wastewater in Tehran, Iran. Thirty-six samples were collected from surface waters, tap water, and influent and effluent of municipal and hospital wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). A solid-phase extraction (SPE) followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was used for the determination of pharmaceuticals, namely ibuprofen (IBP), naproxen (NPX), diclofenac (DIC), and indomethacin (IDM). IBP was found in most of the samples and had the highest concentration. The highest concentrations of NSAIDs were found in the municipal WWTP influents and hospital WWTP effluents. In the municipal WWTP influent samples, the concentrations of IBP, NPX, DIC, and IDM were 1.05, 0.43, 0.23, and 0.11μg/L, respectively. DIC was found only in one river sample. All NSAIDs were detected in tap water samples. However, their concentration was very low and the maximum values for IBP, NPX, DIC, and IDM were 47, 39, 24, and 37ng/L, respectively, in tap water samples. Results showed that the measured pharmaceuticals were detected in all rivers with low concentrations in nanograms per liter range, except DIC which was found only in one river. Furthermore, this study showed that the aforementioned pharmaceuticals are not completely removed during their passage through WWTPs. A potential environmental risk of selected NSAIDs for the urban wastewater has been discussed. However, given their low measured concentrations, no ecotoxicological effect is suspected to occur.

A review of datasets and load forecasting techniques for smart natural gas and water grids: Analysis and experiments

In this paper, experiments concerning the prediction of water and natural gas consumption are presented, focusing on how to exploit data heterogeneity to get a reliable outcome. Prior to this, an up-to-date state-of-the-art review on the available datasets and forecasting techniques of water and natural gas consumption, is conducted. A collection of techniques (Artificial Neural Networks, Deep Belief Networks, Echo State Networks, Support Vector Regression, Genetic Programming and Extended Kalman Filter-Genetic Programming), partially selected from the state-of-the-art ones, are evaluated using the few publicly available datasets. The tests are performed according to two key aspects: homogeneous evaluation criteria and application of heterogeneous data. Experiments with heterogeneous data obtained combining multiple types of resources (water, gas, energy and temperature), aimed to short-term prediction, have been possible using the Almanac of Minutely Power dataset (AMPds). On the contrary, the Energy Information Administration (E.I.A.) data are used for long-term prediction combining gas and temperature information. At the end, the selected approaches have been evaluated using the sole Tehran water consumption for long-term forecasts (thanks to the full availability of the dataset). The AMPds and E.I.A. natural gas results show a correlation with temperature, that produce a performance improvement. The ANN and SVR approaches achieved good performance for both long/short-term predictions, while the EKF-GP showed good outcomes with the E.I.A. datasets. Finally, it is the authors׳ purpose to create a valid starting point for future works that aim to develop innovative forecasting approaches, providing a fair comparison among different computational intelligence and machine learning techniques.

Sensitivity Analysis of Buried Jointed Pipelines Subjected to Earthquake Waves

In this study, a number of nonlinear time-history dynamic analyses are conducted on a part of Tehran water distribution network to investigate its functionality during transient large ground motions. The network is of 950-meter length, consisting of ductile iron pipes segments of 6-meter length. Pipes are modeled using beam elements and springs characterize the connections. Considering the time lag between support inputs, and the nonlinear soil-pipe interaction, by scaling the amplitude of the Tab as earthquake record, incremental dynamic analysis is carried out on the network in two orthogonal directions and the sensitivity of the network response is examined. Furthermore, the effects of variations in soil damping and soil spring stiffness are also studied in the network analysis. Finally the effect of changes in angle between incoming wave and pipeline is considered on a simplified network. Results show that the points other than critical ones at network intersections remain almost intact and when the angle of incidence is 30 degrees the stress and rotation peak.

Investigating Contemporary Iranian Urban Parks on Mental Vitality for Children (Case Study: Teheran Water and Fire Park)

This study aims to determine factors that make urban park more vital for children. The next generation of nations will come from healthy children being spared of the negative effects of industry turmoil. Children wandering in the cities are searching loop to find a link with nature. If we establish a relationship with nature and living conditions of children are provided in a way that nature has done, it acts as an antidote to prevent many social effects. So with regard to the further development of cities, urban parks and green spaces improve mental and physical health of the children. On the other hand, with a look at the existing green spaces and parks in Iranian cities, we realize that these places do not enjoy, at the children's view, the level of freshness and vitality and simply impose certain activities to children and the only use is for leisure.The present study investigates water and Fire Park in Tehran as a case study to find the challenge and the reasons for the lack of vitality in these areas. The research method is descriptive-analytical statistical data were collected.through questionnaire the results of the analysis of questionnaire data suggests the fact that two factors of entertaining and varied and flexible and creative activities for children are weakening factors of the vitality levels in these samples.

Deriving Hedging Rules of Multi-Reservoir System by Online Evolving Neural Networks

This paper presents an online optimization scheme for combined use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), hedging policies and harmony search algorithm (HS) in developing optimum operating policies for Tehran water resources system. Past efforts in this area are concentrated on using an offline approach. In that approach, an optimization method is first used to derive a long-term set of optimum reservoir releases. These releases are then used as the target vector for training the ANN model. The online method simultaneously uses the optimization and ANN methods and can adopt objective functions other than minimizing the error indices. Therefore, it requires methods other than the backpropagation for training the ANN model. Hence, under the proposed online approach the application of a heuristic method, such as HS, is inevitable for training the network. This is accomplished by using an optimization-simulation procedure where different objective functions and system constraints could be easily handled. The proposed approach is a novel and efficient method for finding the parameters of hedging policies where earlier methods suffered from high computational costs and the curse of dimensionality. The results show the superiority of the proposed online scheme. Moreover, a surrogate model for the hedging policy is presented, which by adhering to the principle of parsimony is more efficient in large scale systems involving many decision variables.

Study on the TOC concentration in raw water and HAAs in Tehran’s water treatment plant outlet

A sampling has been undertaken to investigate the variation of haloacetic acids formation and nature organic matter through 81 samples were collected from three water treatment plant and three major rivers of Tehran Iran. Changes in the total organic matter (TOC), ultraviolet absorbance (UV254), specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA) were measured in raw water samples. Haloacetic acids concentrations were monitored using a new static headspace GC-ECD method without a manual pre-concentration in three water treatment plants. The average concentration of TOC and HAAs in three rivers and three water treatment plants in spring, summer and fall, were 4, 2.41 and 4.03 mg/L and 48.75, 43.79 and 51.07 μg/L respectively. Seasonal variation indicated that HAAs levels were much higher in spring and fall.

Determination and Source Identification of Polycyclic Aromatics Hydrocarbons in Karaj River, Iran

Sixteen priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in six stations in Karaj River, which is the main resource of drinking water in Tehran. The single PAHs concentrations ranged from not detected to 2,327.8 ng L(-1), with a mean value of 31.5 ng L(-1). The total PAHs concentrations ranged from 25.6, in the spring, to 4,040.3 ng L(-1), in the summer. PAHs concentrations in different sampling stations were similar (p = 0.33-0.99), but strong relationships were detected between seasonal variations and total PAHs, BaP equivalent and carcinogen PAHs concentration (p = 0.010-0.037). Results showed that carcinogen PAHs comprised 7 %-92 % of detected PAHs in different sampling stations. The concentration of benzo(a)pyrene, as an indicator, was lower than the permissible limit of the World Health Organization; however, in some samples, carcinogen PAHs concentrations were higher than the permissible limits of the European Union and USA Environmental Protection Agency regulations for drinking water.

Hydraulic performance of post-earthquake water distribution networks based on head driven simulation method

Water distribution networks are one of the most important infrastructures in urban areas. Evaluating their real hydraulic performance after being damaged by earthquake loadings is crucial for future planning. In this study, pipeline damage caused by seismic wave propagation is modelled using relationships obtained from 1994 Northridge earthquake. Damaged network is hydraulically analysed using the head driven simulation method (HDSM). This analysis helps to obtain actual performance of the water distribution network damaged by seismic waves, without the usual need to handle negative nodal pressures generated from demand driven simulation method. Pressure performance indicator and the total leakage of the network are used as indicators to show the hydraulic performance of the system. Comparison of the damages from different seismic scenarios and the hydraulic indicators of the network, illustrate the probable condition of the water distribution network after the earthquake. The proposed methodology is applied on a reservoir zone of the Tehran water distribution network. The results indicate the degree of damage in terms of pipe burst and leak points in this network.

English

The main purpose of this research is to use a decision approach in prioritizing strategy choice for SWOT matrix analysis. This research was done in 2010, in Frab Co. which works in the field of installation of water and energy projects in Tehran. Based on the nature of the research, its statistical society was managers and experts of different units of the organization. The members of this team include the managing director, management of human resources, director of planning and project control, inspection and quality control manager, financial and administrative management and engineering management and deputy of projects affairs. The present research in terms of purpose is an applied research; it is also considered as a descriptive research. In this research for determining important weight, fuzzy analytic network process was used. The fuzzy method used was Chang’s extent analysis (EA) method. Excel software was used to calculate analytic network process by using extent analysis method for determination of important weights, and MATLAB software was used to get the final results of the study. Research results showed that when dependence exists among SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) factors, this dependence could change weight and priority of strategy alternative, and eventually WO (weaknesses- opportunities) strategy with the final weight of 0.317 was selected as the best strategy. Key words: Strategic planning, SWOT matrix, analytic network process, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, Chang’s extent analysis method, triangular fuzzy numbers.