Rehabilitation of water treatment plants with operational constrains: a study on turbidity removal

High-rate lamella settlers in clarifiers and triple media filters have been implemented in Isfahan water treatment plant (known as ‘Baba-Sheikh-Ali’) in Iran to upgrade existing clarification/filtration processes during the recent years. The applied technologies are mainly used to reduce finished water turbidity as the primary regional criterion on water quality. However, application of both technologies faced some operational limitations since they began to work. These problems are due to the existing layout of the process units and available materials. The current study focuses on performance of restricted application of the two technologies with respect to turbidity removal. Online measured turbidity data from a two-year field observation (since March 2010) are used. In particular, results show a more promising and long-term effect on turbidity removal due to tripling filter media rather than application of the lamella settlers in clarifiers. The reasons for these observations are discussed.