A Novel Current Condition Assessment System for Sustainable Management and Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants

Abstract

Wastewater treatment is important in terms of human and environmental health in the urban water management cycle. Appropriate methods should be applied based on accurate data in order to ensure efficiency. This study developed a novel current condition assessment system to evaluate the data quality and the implementation level of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) management and operations practices. The developed system consists of 48 components including the basic processes used in the operation of WWTPs. A unique scoring system is proposed to evaluate the system. The developed system was tested in three pilot WWTPs. The performance of Utility 2 was better than that of the other utilities in terms of data quality and implementation level of methods. However, the scores of Utilities 1 and 2 generally were close to each other. The weaknesses and strengths were determined within the scope of WWTP management in each utility.