Prevention of mixing of contaminated water with potable water using internet of things based water quality management system

Despite a good legislative framework, South Africa faces significant challenges in the sustainable provision of adequate and safe water services. To improve the situation, South Africa's Department of Water Affairs (DWA) and other water sector partners undertook initiatives to assist municipalities with operation and management of water services. By way of example, in 2006, the municipal engineering oriented electronic Water Quality Management System (eWQMS) was implemented, providing municipalities with a platform for loading drinking water quality data and tracking performance of key water services management functions. Following this in 2008, DWA introduced an incentive-based regulatory programme, Blue Drop Certification (BDC), and the associated regulatory drinking water quality information system, the Blue Drop System (BDS) which is, for example, populated with data loaded by municipalities onto eWQMS. An integral part of BDC is the development of Water Safety Plans (WSPs). Due to the challenges faced by municipalities in developing WSPs, the Water Research Commission (WRC) saw a need to assist municipalities, and subsequently a generic Water Safety Plan for Small Community Water Supplies was developed. The WRC also saw the need to develop an easy-to-use WSP tool for municipalities. The eWQMS was selected as the platform for making the tool available. This paper presents the development of a web-enabled WSP tool on the eWQMS which ultimately will provide the information to the BDS.

Download Full-text

Economic and Environmental Assessment of a Water Quality Management System (River Neckar)

Environmental Assessment of Socioeconomic Systems ◽

10.1007/978-1-4684-2520-8_12 ◽

1978 ◽

pp. 203-224

Author(s):

J. Klaus

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Quality Management ◽

Environmental Assessment ◽

Management System ◽

Quality Management System ◽

Water Quality Management

Download Full-text

Comparison of STPA and Bow-tie Method Outcomes in the Development and Testing of an Automated Water Quality Management System

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201927302008 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 273 ◽

pp. 02008 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hew Cameron Merrett ◽

Jao Jia Horng ◽

Andrew Piggot ◽

Amro Qandour ◽

Chen Wei Tong

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Quality Management ◽

Design Process ◽

Management System ◽

Quality Management System ◽

Process Analysis ◽

Water Quality Management ◽

Human Interaction ◽

Operational Failures ◽

Bow Tie

The technology available to water quality management applications needs to be advanced due to greater use of automation to increase ease of operation, support remote operation and reduce risks due to operator error. In this case study, a comparison is made between System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and the Bow-tie methodology for identifying process hazards and countermeasures which can be used to guide the design and testing of an automated water quality management system (AWQMS). For this study, the application considered is a small hydroponics installation where water quality management has been automated. The STPA methodology uses a system theory-based approach to identify hazards, which include operational failures, human errors, and component interactions. The Bow-tie diagram focuses on individual barriers for a given threat which can prevent the realisation of a hazardous event and unwanted consequences. Thus, the 22 preventative barriers and seven recovery barriers identified through the Bow-tie diagram provide the design process with broad requirements for reducing the risks of user error as well as the ones associated with ongoing operations. The STPA method identified many Causal Factors (CF) generated from the Unsafe Control Actions after considering all the feasible scenarios. For design input, the STPA provided the design process with 204 specific CFs which were used to create 94 countermeasures to be included in software and hardware design as well as user information material. Both methods identified useful measures to control the hazards associated with human interaction with the AWQMS. However, the measures differed in the level of detail and the involvement in the evolution in the final system losses. In this study, the STPA process was able to identify several hazards which did not visibly relate to the Bow-tie barriers. However, the Bow-tie diagram illustrates a distinction between preventative and recovery hazard controls.

Download Full-text