No abstract

The aqueduct serving the municipalities of Formia and Gaeta (Latina province, Italy), an area under the enforcement and control responsibility of “ATO 4” Autorità d’Ambito Territoriale Ottimale – (Integrated Urban Water Management Agency), is supplied by two important karst springs. These springs, fed by the western Aurunci Mountains system are known as Mazzoccolo and Capodacqua having an average flow rates of 1100 l/s and 1300 l/s, respectively. Although these sources have been used since ancient Roman times and the quality of their water is excellent, variations in the precipitation regime, possibly related to worldwide climate changes, has exacerbated the following problems: a decrease in the flow rates of the springs caused by the reduction in winter rainfall, and an increase of turbidity due to concentrated rainfall events. In order to mitigate these problems, which affect a resident population of about 150,000 inhabitants, Acqualatina S.p.A. - the water utility company - promoted a series of geological and hydrogeological surveys. These studies aim at increasing the knowledge on the geological setting and to find additional sources to improve the existing supply. Within the framework of these activities, we studied a strategy aimed at diversifying the water supply by identifying new exploitable aquifers in the area, to reduce the aforementioned problems. This paper presents the results of research carried out before and during the construction of the water well field “25 Ponti” located in the coastal area of the plain of Formia. The research consisted in laboratory analyses of 130 groundwater samples and in monitoring of piezometric trends. The data show a seasonal variation in groundwater chemical composition caused also by aquifer exploitation, which in some periods of the year affects the regulated reserves. This seasonal phenomenon was however present in absence of pumping.

Sludge reduction in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) has recently become a key issue for the managing companies, due to the increasing constraints on the disposal alternatives. Therefore, all the solutions proposed with the aim of minimizing sludge production are receiving increasing attention and are tested either at laboratory or full-scale to evaluate their real effectiveness. In the present paper, electro-kinetic disintegration has been applied at full-scale in the recycle loop of the sludge drawn from the secondary settlement tank of a small WWTP for domestic sewage. After the disintegration stage, the treated sludge was returned to the biological reactor. Three different percentages (50, 75 and 100%) of the return sludge flow rate were subjected to disintegration and the effects on the sludge production and the WWTP operation efficiency evaluated. The long-term observations showed that the electro-kinetic disintegration was able to drastically reduce the amount of biological sludge produced by the plant, without affecting its treatment efficiency. The highest reduction was achieved when 100% return sludge flow rate was subjected to the disintegration process. The reduced sludge production gave rise to a considerable net cost saving for the company which manages the plant.

Among water management policies, the preservation and the saving of energy demand in water supply and treatment systems play key roles. When focusing on energy, the customary metric to determine the performance of water supply systems is linked to the definition of component-based energy indicators. This approach is unfit to account for interactions occurring among system elements or between the system and its environment. On the other hand, the development of information technology has led to the availability of increasing large amount of data, typically gathered from distributed sensor networks in so-called smart grids. In this context, data intensive methodologies address the possibility of using complex network modeling approaches, and advocate the issues related to the interpretation and analysis of large amount of data produced by smart sensor networks.\ud In this perspective, the present work aims to use data intensive techniques in the energy analysis of a water management network.\ud The purpose is to provide new metrics for the energy rating of the system and to be able to provide insights into the dynamics of its operations. The study applies neural network as a tool to predict energy demand, when using flowrate and vibration data as predictor variables