Urban runoff: its significance, chemical characteristics, and possible chemical treatment
Most of the countries around the world including Singapore are becoming water scarce,Limited fresh water resources and growing demand of water in urban areas have intensifiedthe search for non-conventional water resources, For countries like Singapore, which receivescopious rainfall, the use of stormwater (rainfall which runs off urban areas such as roofs,roads, and vegetated surfaces) has the potential to enhance urban water supply, However,using urban landscape as catchments has its inherent challenges, Human activities introducechemical and biological contaminants of different types into the urban runoff, affecting itsquality significantly. Environmentally-friendly as well as cost-effective treatmenttechnologies are needed to treat urban runoff at points of collection so that the treatedstorn1water can be used for a range of practical applications,In order to identify the most appropriate treatment technology, it is necessary to have detailedinformation on the physical and chemical characteristics of urban runoff collected at anetwork of urban sites, As these characteristics of urban runoff largely depend on land usepatterns, stormwater samples have been collected in this study from various land use sectorsusing automated samplers and subsequently processed in the laboratory to establish theirchemical characteristics mainly in terms of trace metals, and organic compounds. Resultsobtained from the chemical characterization work are presented followed by the discussion onthe potential of enhancing urban runoff quality through chemical treatment with a strongoxidant having multiple functions including coagulation, flocculation, and disinfection.