Service-lines as major contributor to water quality deterioration at customer ends

Biofilm detachment contributes to water quality deterioration. However, the contributions of biofilm detachment from different pipes have not been quantified or compared. Following the introduction of partial reverse osmosis (RO) in drinking water production, this study analyzed particles at customers’ ends and tracked their origins to water...

Thermal Energy Recovery from Drinking Water Distribution Systems: A study into microbial water quality and potential energy

Drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) are intended to supply hygienically safe and biostable water for human consumption. To supply aesthetically pleasant drinking water at the customers tap, water treatment and supply requires energy for production and distribution purposes (e.g. overall between 0.47 kWh/m³ in the Netherlands)....

Direct evidence of microbiological water quality changes on bacterial quantity and community caused by plumbing system

Drinking water quality deteriorates from treatment plant to customer taps, especially in the plumbing system. There is no direct evidence about what the differences are contributed by plumbing system. This study compared the water quality in the water main and at customer tap by preparing a sampling tap on the water main. The biomass was...

Capturing and tracing the spatiotemporal variations of planktonic and particle-associated bacteria in an unchlorinated drinking water distribution system

The aperiodic changes in the quantity and community of planktonic and particle-associated bacteria have hampered the understanding and management of microbiological water quality in drinking water distribution systems. In this study, online sampling was combined with the microbial fingerprint-based SourceTracker2 to capture and trace the...

Changes in biofilm composition and microbial water quality in drinking water distribution systems by temperature increase induced through thermal energy recovery

Drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) have been thoroughly studied, but the concept of thermal energy recovery from DWDSs is very new and has been conceptualized in the past few years. Cold recovery results in a temperature increase of the drinking water. Its effects on drinking water quality and biofilm development are unclear. Hence, we...

Effects of cold recovery technology on the microbial drinking water quality in unchlorinated distribution systems

Drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) are used to supply hygienically safe and biologically stable water for human consumption. The potential of thermal energy recovery from drinking water has been explored recently to provide cooling for buildings. Yet, the effects of increased water temperature induced by this “cold recovery” on the...

Assessing the transition effects in a drinking water distribution system caused by changing supply water quality: an indirect approach by characterizing suspended solids

Worldwide, it is common that the drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) may be subjected to changes of supply water quality due to the needs of upgrading the treatment processes or switching the source water. However, the potential impacts of quality changed supply water on the stabilized ecological niches within DWDSs and the associated...

Assessing the origin of bacteria in tap water and distribution system in an unchlorinated drinking water system by SourceTracker using microbial community fingerprints

The general consensus is that the abundance of tap water bacteria is greatly influenced by water purification and distribution. Those bacteria that are released from biofilm in the distribution system are especially considered as the major potential risk for drinking water bio-safety. For the first time, this full-scale study has captured and...

Impact of Distribution and Network Flushing on the Drinking Water Microbiome

We sampled the tap water of seven unique, full-scale drinking water distribution systems at different locations as well as the corresponding treatment plant effluents to evaluate the impact of distribution and the potential presence of a core drinking water microbiome. The water was also sampled during network flushing to examine its effect on...

Hotspots for selected metal elements and microbes accumulation and the corresponding water quality deterioration potential in an unchlorinated drinking water distribution system

Biofilm formation, loose deposit accumulation and water quality deterioration in drinking water distribution systems have been widely reported. However, the accumulation and distribution of harbored elements and microbes in the different niches (loose deposits, PVC-U biofilm, and HDPE biofilm) and their corresponding potential contribution to...

Testing the robustness of two water distribution system layouts under changing drinking water demand

A drinking water distribution system (DWDS) is a critical and a costly asset with a long lifetime. Drinking water demand is likely to change in the coming decades. Quantifying these changes involves large uncertainties. This paper proposes a stress test on the robustness of existing DWDS under changing drinking water demands. The stress test...

Robustness of the Drinking Water Distribution Network under Changing Future Demand

A methodology to determine the robustness of the drinking water distribution system is proposed. The performance of three networks under ten future demand scenarios was tested, using head loss and residence time as indicators. The scenarios consider technological and demographic changes. Daily patterns were simulated with SIMDEUM for each...

Discolouration in drinking water systems: A particular approach

The quality of drinking water in the Netherlands meets high standards as is annually reported by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM)(Versteegh and Dik, 2006). Also the water companies themselves report in the voluntary Benchmark that water quality is one of the least discriminating factors as all the companies ...