scholarly journals Impact of network sectorisation on water quality management

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 424-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hooman Armand ◽  
Ivan Stoianov ◽  
Nigel Graham

Abstract The sectorisation of water supply networks (WSNs) includes the permanent closure of valves in order to achieve a cost-effective leakage management and simplify pressure control. The impact of networks sectorisation, also known as district metered areas (DMAs), on water quality and discolouration has not been extensively studied and it remains unknown. In addition, hydraulic variables used in the literature for assessing the likelihood of potential discolouration are limited and inconclusive. This paper investigates a methodology to evaluate the impact of networks sectorisation (DMAs) on water quality and the likelihood of discolouration incidents. The methodology utilises a set of surrogate hydraulic variables and an analysis of the hydraulic condition in pipes with historic discolouration complaints. The proposed methodology has been applied to a large-scale WSN, with and without sectors, in order to assess the potential impact of DMAs on water quality. The results demonstrate that the sectorisation of WSN (DMAs) could compromise the overall water quality and increase the likelihood of discolouration incidents. The results of this study and the proposed surrogate hydraulic variables facilitate the formulation of optimisation problems for the re-design and control of WSNs with sectorised topologies.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
D Panatto ◽  
P Landa ◽  
D Amicizia ◽  
P L Lai ◽  
E Lecini ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Invasive disease due to Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) is a serious public health problem even in developed countries, owing to its high lethality rate (8-15%) and the invalidating sequelae suffered by many (up to 60%) survivors. As the microorganism is transmitted via the airborne route, the only available weapon in the fight against Nm invasive disease is vaccination. Our aim was to carry out an HTA to evaluate the costs and benefits of anti-meningococcal B (MenB) vaccination with Trumenba® in adolescents in Italy, while also considering the impact of this new vaccination strategy on organizational and ethics aspects. Methods A lifetime Markov model was developed. MenB vaccination with the two-dose schedule of Trumenba® in adolescents was compared with 'non-vaccination'. Two perspectives were considered: the National Health Service (NHS) and society. Three disease phases were defined: acute, post-acute and long-term. Epidemiological, economic and health utilities data were taken from Italian and international literature. The analysis was conducted by means of Microsoft Excel 2010®. Results Our study indicated that vaccinating adolescents (11th year of life) with Trumenba® was cost-effective with an ICER = € 7,912/QALY from the NHS perspective and € 7,758/QALY from the perspective of society. Vaccinating adolescents reduces the number of cases of disease due to meningococcus B in one of the periods of highest incidence of the disease, resulting in significant economic and health savings. Conclusions This is the first study to evaluate the overall impact of free MenB vaccination in adolescents both in Italy and in the international setting. Although cases of invasive disease due to meningococcus B are few, if the overall impact of the disease is adequately considered, it becomes clear that including anti-meningococcal B vaccination into the immunization program for adolescents is strongly recommended from the health and economic standpoints. Key messages Free, large-scale MenB vaccination is key to strengthening the global fight against invasive meningococcal disease. Anti-meningococcal B vaccination in adolescents is a cost-effective health opportunity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-119
Author(s):  
Xinming Xia ◽  
Wan-Hsin Liu

AbstractThis paper analyses how China’s investments in Germany have developed over time and the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in this regard, based on four different datasets, including our own survey in mid-2020. Our analysis shows that Germany is currently one of the most attractive investment destinations for Chinese investors. Chinese state-owned enterprises have played an important role as investors in Germany — particularly in large-scale projects. The COVID-19 pandemic has had some negative but rather temporary effects on Chinese investments in Germany. Germany is expected to stay attractive to Chinese investors who seek to gain access to advanced technologies and know-how in the future.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Aggarwal ◽  
Nicholas Chiu ◽  
Rishi Wadhera ◽  
Changyu Shen ◽  
Robert W Yeh ◽  
...  

Introduction: Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The US government, through the Healthy People Initiative 2020, set targets to improve hypertension prevalence and treatment rates in US adults by a relative 10% from 2005 to 2020, and increase control rates by a relative 40%. We examined US progress towards this goal from 2005-2018. Methods: We analyzed data from 38,876 non-pregnant US adults from the NHANES 2005-2018 surveys to determine nationally representative estimates of hypertension prevalence, treatment rates, and control. Temporal trends in hypertension prevalence, treatment, and control were assessed using weighted linear regression after age adjustment to the 2000 US census (per the Healthy People Initiative approach). In the base case, we defined hypertension as blood pressure >140/90 or on an antihypertensive; we used the ACC/AHA definition of blood pressure >130/80 in sensitivity analyses. Results: In 2017-2018, 34.3% (±1.7) of US adults had hypertension, of these 69.7% (±1.5) were on treatment, and 43.7% (±1.6) were controlled. After age-adjustment, no statistically significant changes in hypertension prevalence, treatment rates, or control were observed from 2005-2018 (p for trend 0.91, ,0.98, 0.66, Figure 1). In sensitivity analyses, applying the ACC/AHA definition increased the estimated prevalence of hypertension during the period, but trends in prevalence remained unchanged. Conclusions: There has been no material progress in reducing the prevalence of hypertension or improving rates of treatment and control from 2005 to 2018. As planning is underway for Healthy People Initiative 2030, setting of hypertension targets must be accompanied with investments in cost-effective, scalable programs to improve blood pressure control nationwide, with a focus on high-risk populations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianrui Pang ◽  
Jiping Jiang ◽  
Fengyuan Zhang ◽  
Harsh Yadav ◽  
Yunlei Men ◽  
...  

<p>In the era of smart city, developing environmental decision support system (EDSS) integrated with monitoring, modelling, planning and control for smart management of urban river water quality has been widely accepted and implemented around the world. Construction and coupling localized water quality models, such as popular WASP and EFDC by USEPA, to meet different management requirements are fundamental for the surface water EDSS development. However, few reported the technique coupling the advanced version of WASP program with EDSS platform. </p><p>Traditional pathway of EDSS integrations or model coupling, e.g. database-oriented interaction, are non-modular, with low efficiency of share and reuse, and difficult for system updating. With the development of cloud computing and web services, the service-oriented design are the future trends of model coupling.</p><p>In this paper, a generic interface/module interacting with WASP V7.5 program is developed and the technical route of tightly coupling is proposed. The web service encapsulation of localized WASP models and advanced cloud computing services are implemented with the help of OpenGMS framework and SaaS (software as services) pattern. To meet the basic requirements of urban water quality management, the water assimilative capacity allocation and pollution load reduction planning are work out by the cloud computing services, which achieves operational running of EDSS.</p><p>The study area is located in Maozhou River Basin, an urban river in Shenzhen, China. According to the national water environment code and regulations, COD (chemical oxygen demand) and NH3-N (ammonia nitrogen) are set as the ending point for supervision and the corresponding WASP model of Maozhou River is constructed and calibrated by historical field data. The computing components and web-services are integrated into the comprehensive water quality management platform of Maozhou River through the model configuration and controlling data parameterization. One version of the Maozhou River EDSS has been deployed and is online on the Shenzhen ecological and environmental intelligent management and control center since January, 2021.</p><p>Along with WASP, service-oriented encapsulating of EFDC and SWMM based computing components for particular management purposes are also implemented based on the same technique route since both of them are developed by USEPA with similar inputs and outputs. The technology of model coupling and platform integration mentioned in this paper provides a valuable paradigm for linking other environment models into specific management business. Under the proposed technical pathway, the interaction of model interface between computation engine and system business layer can be easily updated along with the changes of management requirements. It provides the merits of rapidly development, easily deployment and maintenance.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubia Akter ◽  
Md Rayhan Hossain ◽  
Md Motiur Rahman ◽  
BM Shahinur Rahman ◽  
KKU Ahmed

The study was carried out to explore the impact of probiotics on shrimp (Penaeus monodon) in the Shrimp Research Station ponds during the culture period of 90 days. The experiment was set in 9 on-station ponds having an area of 0.052?0.064 ha. Three treatments of the experiment were: super Ps probiotics broadcast all over the ponds mixed with clay (T1), probiotics broadca Zymetin st over the pond mixed with feed (T2) and control (without probiotics) the ponds (T3) and each treatments having 3 replicates. All Juvenile of shrimp were stocked at a density of 6.0 juv/m2 and was fed with quality feed (gold plus-grower) twice daily at the rate of 10.3% of shrimp biomass. Water quality parameters namely temperature, water depth, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, ammonia, nitrate, total alkalinity and transparency were within suitable range for shrimp growth without finding any stress. Growth of shrimp was measured and feed was adjusted after every fortnight. The average weight of shrimp in T1, T2 and T3 was 22.065 ±5.52, 19.87 ±4.98 and 11.01 ±0.86g, respectively. Higher growth was obtained from T1 followed by T2 and T3. Day after 90 of husbandry, all shrimp were harvested. The survivality rate of shrimp production was reckoned 80%. The production of shrimp was found 760 kg/ha in T1, 665 kg/ha in T2 and 205.19 kg/ha. in T3. So the highest production was found using super PS (T1). Food conversion ratio (FCR) of prawn was found higher (2.48) in T3 compared to T1 (1.83) and T2 (2.01). The result of the study is therefore revealed that probiotics paly a most important role in growth, survival and production of shrimp by maintaining good water quality environment throughout the culture period. It may be therefore concluded that probiotics can be utilized well the shrimp ponds to get higher growth and production keeping the congenial environment.Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. March 2017, 3(1): 88-93


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-549
Author(s):  
Maoqing Duan ◽  
Xia Du ◽  
Wenqi Peng ◽  
Cuiling Jiang ◽  
Shijie Zhang

Abstract In northern China, river water originating from or flowing through forests often contains large amounts of oxygen-consuming organic substances, mainly humic substances. These substances are stable and not easily biodegradable, resulting in very high detection values of chemical oxygen demand. However, under natural conditions, the dissolved oxygen demand is not as high. Using experimental values to evaluate river water quality and the impact of human activities on water quality is thus unscientific and does not meet national development goals. In this study, the potential sources of high-concentration chemical oxygen demand in river water in two areas exposed to virtually no anthropogenic activities and strongly affected by humic substances, were analysed. The chemical oxygen demand contributed by humic substances (COD-HSs) was quantified using three methods. The results of water quality monitoring in 2017 and 2018 revealed that the chemical oxygen demand concentrations (5–44 mg/L) predominantly exceeded the standard (15 mg/L). The study results suggest that COD-HSs should be considered separately for objective evaluation and management of water quality, particularly in areas that are seriously affected by COD-HSs, to provide a scientific basis for formulating sustainable water quality management policies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 407
Author(s):  
Chris Hewitson ◽  
Eva Dec ◽  
Tony Lines

This peer-reviewed paper examines the risks and responsibilities of water providers and the process resource companies should undertake to document how they will deliver a safe and secure water supply to their employees and contractors, and the communities in which they operate, thereby reducing the risks of water quality incidents and managing the impact to the organisation should an incident occur. Water quality incidents can have major impacts to human health and the brand perception of the resource company supplying the water, and can potentially shutdown resource abstraction. Resource companies have a duty of care to provide a secure and safe drinking water supply. This is reinforced by state health departments directing resource organisations to comply with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG), which were updated in 2011 (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2011). Organisations in the CSG industry experience an additional challenge—managing water by-product from gas extraction. There are drivers for the beneficial use of this water—including irrigation, aquifer recharge and municipal supply—resulting in changes to legislation in Queensland (DERM, 2010) that require a process similar to ADWG recommendations, where beneficial use or disposal may impact potable supplies. The ADWG provides clear guidance to potable water providers—whether they are supplying a few consumers or major towns requiring a Drinking Water Quality Management System (DWQM System). This guidance includes documenting a clear process to securing a clean water source, making the water safe to consume and proving it is safe. Developing a DWQM System enables resource companies to understand issues in supplying drinking water through regular review and improvement, while minimising and managing the health risks to consumers.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam ◽  
S. Jamshid Mousavi

This paper presents basic definitions and challenges/opportunities from different perspectives to study and control water cycle impacts on society and vice versa. The wider and increased interactions and their consequences such as global warming and climate change, and the role of complex institutional- and governance-related socioeconomic-environmental issues bring forth new challenges. Hydrology and integrated water resources management (IWRM from the viewpoint of an engineering planner) do not exclude in their scopes the study of the impact of changes in global hydrology from societal actions and their feedback effects on the local/global hydrology. However, it is useful to have unique emphasis through specialized fields such as hydrosociology (including the society in planning water projects, from the viewpoint of the humanities) and sociohydrology (recognizing the large-scale impacts society has on hydrology, from the viewpoint of science). Global hydrological models have been developed for large-scale hydrology with few parameters to calibrate at local scale, and integrated assessment models have been developed for multiple sectors including water. It is important not to do these studies with a silo mindset, as problems in water and society require highly interdisciplinary skills, but flexibility and acceptance of diverse views will progress these studies and their usefulness to society. To deal with complexities in water and society, systems modeling is likely the only practical approach and is the viewpoint of researchers using coupled human–natural systems (CHNS) models. The focus and the novelty in this paper is to clarify some of these challenges faced in CHNS modeling, such as spatiotemporal scale variations, scaling issues, institutional issues, and suggestions for appropriate mathematical tools for dealing with these issues.


1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (12) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. House

The visual and odorous characteristics of the environment tend to be those which have the greatest impact upon the public's assessment of environmental quality. In many cases the public's perception of water quality may be based entirely on these aesthetic aspects of a water environment. Those responsible for the management of surface water quality recognise the need to apply a range of management strategies including a consideration of the public's perception of water quality and the impact of this upon their use of rivers and beaches for recreation and amenity. This paper reports upon the results from a recent investigation into the impact of sewage derived litter on perceived water and environmental quality.


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