Assessing the Efficiency of a Drinking Water Treatment Plant Using Statistical Methods and Quality Indices

Abstract

This study presents the efficiency of a drinking water treatment plant from Constanța, Romania. Individual and aggregated indices are proposed and built using nine water parameters for this aim. The analysis of individual indices permits the detection of the period of malfunctioning of the water treatment plant with respect to various parameters at various sampling points. In contrast, the cumulated indices indicate the overall performance of the treatment plant during the study period, considering all water parameters. It was shown that the outliers significantly impact the values of some indices. Comparisons between the simple average and weighted average indices (built taking into account the importance of each parameter) better reflect the impact on the water quality of some chemical elements that might harm people’s health when improperly removed.