| Popis: |
Water treatment and distribution systems are highly vulnerable to degradation of quality and reliability of supply as a result of many factors, natural, accidental, and intentional. Among the potential intentional factors that the utility manager and operators have to plan for is the introduction of toxic contaminants into the water supply or disruption of water service through sabotage of key components of the infrastructure. Rapid recognition of the nature and location of such occurrences is vital to protect the integrity of the water supply and safeguard the consumers from potentially harmful contaminants, determine appropriate changes in supply and treatment strategy, and ensure compliance with environmental regulations. The utility manager and the operations staff must be given the proper tools as well as be trained to identify an event, locate the extent and potential danger to the public, and be prepared to react in a proper and timely fashion. Rapidly developing sophisticated software and real time instrumentation and monitoring systems provide the tools to design and develop early warning monitoring systems and to increase the preparedness of the water utility to react to such unexpected events. Proper integration of state of the industry hydraulic modeling systems, geographical information systems (GIS) for the water distribution network, and the installation of a SCADA system for both water treatment plant and active element control as well as the monitoring of critical points within the distribution system will be an invaluable resource for the operator to react to an event (real time response) as well as to plan for possible future events (contingency planning). |
