Fluctuations of Dissolved Organic Matter in River Used for Drinking Water and Impacts on Conventional Treatment Plant Performance

Abstract

Natural organic matter (NOM) in drinking water supplies can provide precursors for disinfectant byproducts, molecules that impact taste and odors, compounds that influence the efficacy of treatment, and other compounds that are a source of energy and carbon for the regrowth of microorganisms during distribution. NOM, measured as dissolved organic carbon (DOC), was monitored daily in the White River and the Indiana-American water treatment plant over 22 months. Other parameters were either measured daily (UV-absorbance, alkalinity, color, temperature) or continuously (turbidity, pH, and discharge) and used with stepwise linear regressions to predict DOC concentrations. The predictive models were validated with monthly samples of the river water and treatment plant effluent taken over a 2-year period after the daily monitoring had ended. Biodegradable DOC (BDOC) concentrations were measured in the river water and plant effluent twice monthly for 18 months. The BDOC measurements, along with measurements of humic and carbohydrate constituents within the DOC and BDOC pools, revealed that carbohydrates were the organic fraction with the highest percent removal during treatment, followed by BDOC, humic substances, and refractory DOC.

Fate of natural organic matter at a full-scale Drinking Water Treatment Plant in Greece

“…NOM usually presents temporal variability. Various studies report higher values before and after the summer due to the algae bloom in surface waters and/or due to precipitation and subsequent leaching of humic substances from the upper soil layer (Volk et al 2005;Uyak et al 2008). On the other hand, Gough et al (2014) observed maximum DOC values in winter months and minimum in summer, whereas Meng et al (2013) reported an opposite trend.…”

Event controlled DOC export from forested watersheds

“…The important contribution of precipitation and snowmelt events to total annual DOC export has been documented (Ciaio and McDiffett 1990;Brown et al 1997;Hinton et al 1998;Volk et al 2002;Even et al 2004;Wellington and Driscoll 2004;Inamdar et al 2006;Saunders et al 2006), and recent observations indicate that the chemical composition and reactivity of soil-water and streamwater DOC changes markedly during rainfall and snowmelt (Easthouse et al 1992;Buffam et al 2001;Kaushal and Lewis 2003;Dalzell et al 2005Dalzell et al , 2007Volk et al 2005;Hood et al 2006;Vidon et al 2008). Although it is evident that hydrologic events (i.e., rainfall, snowmelt) serve as ''hot moments'' for the loss of labile carbon, organic-bound nutrients, and DOCassociated pollutants from the terrestrial landscape (McClain et al 2003), quantitative linkages between event-based DOC concentrations and stream discharge and other watershed characteristics have not been well elucidated.…”

Water Quality Assessment by Ecotoxicological and Limnological Methods in Water Supplies, Southeast Brazil

“…NOM in drinking water supplies can provide precursors for disinfectant by-products and molecules that change taste and odor, influencing the efficacy of the treatment, besides being a source of energy and carbon for the regrowth of microorganisms during distribution (Volk et al, 2005). There is also the fouling of membranes and ion-exchange resins, and NOM makes the oxidation of dissolved iron and manganese to insoluble forms more difficult (Minear and Amy, 1996;Bolto et al, 2002).…”