DUGi

Anàlisi de dades de potabilització d’aigua per estimar el risc microbiològic de l’aigua potable

http://dugi.udg.edu/item/http:@@@@hdl.handle.net@@10256@@20510

Outbreaks of waterborne diseases still are a public health problem in the 21st century, especially on developing countries, but also in developed countries. Drinking Water Treatment Plants (DWTP) are in charge of guaranteeing that tap water has a good quality (in terms of both microbiological and physicochemical aspects), so that, among other things, they minimize the risk of suffering an infectious disease. Nevertheless, perturbations during the treatment process, extreme meteorological conditions or tap water pollution during its distribution can trigger microbiological risk and can provoke epidemic outbreaks. To quantify microbiological risk QMRA (Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment) methodology can be applied. QMRA is a four steps methodology that explores several aspects as: type of pathogenic microorganisms, inlet water characteristics, treatment operation, epidemiological data, etc. In the present report microbiological risk of tap water treated by DWTP Ter is analyzed according to the QMRA methodology. First of all, a classification algorithm has been developed to estimate the microbiological concentration on the DWTP inlet by using different environmental conditions daily monitored. The algorithm has been developed using big volumes of data (daily data from historical series of 20 years), and for this reason it was necessary to use Data Mining tools. Finally, estimated microbiological concentrations have been used to calculate one of the most common metrics used for quantifying microbiological risk: DALY (Disability Adjusted Life Years). This metric has been calculated following the WHO’s and Microrisk’s manuals directrices. DALY has allowed to quantify the risk in a range of values and has allowed to visualize under which conditions a dangerous situation could arise. Microbiological risk calculus for tap water treated in DWTP Ter has been resulted to be low in most of the cases, but some scenarios where the risk would overcome the WHO’s limit have been detected. Special focus should be paid on these scenarios, where water treatment should be more accurate