Analysis and Evaluation of Water Quality Management Tools in Water Distribution Networks Against Pollution Entrance in Zahedan Water Distribution Network

Population growth and urbanization are the main reasons for increased pollution nowadays. Pollution entrance into urban drinking water distribution networks, can cause irreparable damage to human health as a result of the suction phenomenon. Awareness and understanding of pollutant sources and the process of contamination transport in the water network leads to advancements in the development of suitable modeling of this phenomenon, as well as, enabling proper crisis management, when the contaminants enter the network. In order to simulate the movement of nitrate in the soil, the nitrate advection-dispersion equation was programmed in MATLAB. The second zone of water distribution network of Zahedan has been considered as the study area and potential points with high concentration of pollutants in the network have been identified. Network simulation, after two hours of contamination, was tested for water contamination by using EPANET software. To manage the network pollution crisis, two water quality management tools were used in the distribution network, including polluted water discharging and dilution flow, then their results were compared in the crisis management. The results of simulating the movement of pollutants in the soil demonstrated that nitrate concentration near the pipe is unallowable and greater than 50 mg/l. The results of discharging of the polluted water showed that by closing pipes from 1.1 to 1.3 of the pollution injection time and also discharging water from 5 to 8% of the base pipe flow can prevent the pollution from entering   other parts of the network. Moreover, For the first time, efficiency and positive performance of dilution flow as another tool for quality management of water distribution network was proved. The Required dilution flow to treat the quality of water was determined to be approximately 16% of the base pipe flow. In order to manage the pollution crisis in the water distribution network, it is vital to use these valuable tools in different situations.