In Australia, remote and regional communities frequently manage relatively small, isolated water treatment and waste management systems which have water quality and health risks characteristic of small-scale decentralised operations…
Although water utilities recognise the value of online instruments that provide real-time monitoring capability, there are problems with visualising and interpreting datasets, and with distinguishing between data resulting from real-world changes in treatment plant operating conditions, for example changed turbidity or flow, and instrument failure…
The ADWG prioritises the removal of microscopic pathogens (and the toxins some produce) from public drinking water supplies to prevent large scale outbreaks of illness…
Water treatment plants (WTP) take in source waters then remove 95-99% of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) cells and the toxins they produce…
The ADWG has methods for predicting risks to water quality, but these were not developed for managing extreme climate-change driven weather events such as bushfires or floods…
Water treatment plant operators remove cyanobacteria and the toxins they produce from source waters but calculating the amount of treatment needed for effective removal is difficult, particularly in bloom conditions when cyanobacterial cell numbers and toxins change quickly…
Microscopic pathogens in drinking water pose a risk to public health…
‘Microbial source tracking’ (MST) is a technique that aims to identify the animal that excreted faeces and polluted water…
Cryptosporidium, a microscopic pathogen, forms infectious oocysts which are removed by specific and targeted water treatments…
Source waters are disinfected to remove harmful pathogens, but chlorine reacts with organic matter and bromides to form disinfection by-products (DBPs) which can affect health…