Managing Water Quality by Mixing Water from Different Sources

Abstract

Water from sources even within a short distance can vary markedly in quality such as salt concentration. The variation may be so great that one is suitable and the other unusable. Processes for improving the quality of water are usually expensive. Mixing of water of different quality sometime can produce water of usable quality without resorting to expensive water purifying process. A procedure for determining the optimal manner to mix the water from a finite number of sources for quality improvement is considered. The procedure can also be used to determine the optimal strategy for purifying some of the water so that usable water can be obtained.