Índice para avaliação do desempenho de estações convencionais de tratamento de água

Abstract

This research work aims the proposal of a Water Treatment Plant Quality Index (WTPQI), applied on the conventional plants, to compare the performance of plants by means a methodology beyond compliance Brazilian water standards. The scope of this work is limited to plants with conventional technology of treatment endowed with rectangular settling basins and treating raw water with Brazilian southeastern region typical characteristics, whose objective consists of the water production with tubidity values under 0,5 NTU and total coliforms absence. The WTPQI methodology was divided in three stages and was based on the same utilized for developing the Water Quality Index (WQI). In the first stage a Delphi survey was conducted to pool expert opinion of 18 specialists in water treatment on the relevance of intervening parameters in plants performance. In the second stage, a punctuation criteria had beendeveloped. The third and last stage consisted of the WTPQI application to ten plants of distinct ports located in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.The results of this application have demonstrated a trend of the stations producing filtered water with better quality to be contemplated with bigger WTPQI values. This fact showed the usefulness of the index as a tool able to help water supply systems management.