Performance assessment framework for groundwater treatment plants in Arid Environments: a case of Buraydah, Saudi...

In arid environmental regions, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), each and every drop of groundwater needs to be efficiently utilized to meet growing water demands. Ground water treatment plants (WTPs) are regularly being monitored by the municipalities to ensure safe water supply. However, analyzing large data to assess the performance of a WTP has always been a daunting task for plant's management. Most of existing performance assessment frameworks were developed for surface WTPs. In this research, an assessment framework using performance-based water quality indices (P _WQI) is developed to facilitate senior management of ground WTPs for effective decision-making. The framework is also implemented on a case study of Buraydah, Qassim, Saudi Arabia. Five most important water quality parameters (WQPs) have been selected to assess the performance of different components of the WTP, including raw water, pre-treatment, ultrafiltration, sand filtration, reverse osmosis, and final product. Depending on the relative importance of WQPs for a specific treatment process, different weighting schemes have been developed for each treatment process using fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) to address the possible uncertainties in data and imprecision in expert opinion. Subsequently, fuzzy weighted sum method (FWSM) is employed to develop aggregated P _WQI for assessing average monthly performance during the year 2016. Study results show that all the units consistently performed "high," and the plant is meeting drinking water quality standards throughout the year. Hypothetical scenario analysis revealed robustness of the developed framework by showing lacking performance in case failure of different units.