Development of a Framework for Water Quality Monitoring in Mexico

ABSTRACT

An attempt is being made in Mexico to develop a water quality monitoring framework that is cost-effective, reliable, accessible, and one that would actually be extensively used by the potential users. The article analyzes the experiences from other developing countries, where the overall usability of the system leaves much to be desired, outlines the essential requirements of a functional monitoring system, critical monitoring issues that should be considered, and the process recommended for developing efficient water quality monitoring in Mexico.     

The Need and Requirements for Modernizing Surface Water Quality Monitoring in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Water quality monitoring in the Russian Federation faces political, technical, institutional, and financial problems. The current Russian model for gathering and production of water quality data is unreliable, out-of-date, and disconnected with current water management issues. While insufficient financing and ineffective legislation are the most obvious limitations, more importantly there is a need for a major overhaul of the program that would begin with a national framework for water quality management. This framework would provide for legal, institutional, and technical modernization of the program within a clearly-defined set of national goals for water quality management. The monitoring program in use in Russia is the legacy of the former USSR. The current growth of national priorities in terms of control and improvement of surface water quality is in contrast to the nation's decreasing ability to provide appropriate information within sustainable technical and institutional environments and that is affordable. This situation requires a new model based on the development of a flexible monitoring system focusing on water quality management. Ensuring financial stability of the monitoring system requires having a transparent and consistent program meeting the specific demands of water management. This, in turn, requires resource-saving methods and innovative relationships between agencies and with the private sector allowing cost reductions for the government.     

Water Resources Management at the Mexican Borders

Abstract

An analysis of the main water-related issues at the Mexican borders is presented, including the border with the United States, Belize, and Guatemala. International Treaties are described and the hydrological conditions at the regions covered by such treaties are analyzed, including droughts and water quality as well as other issues pertaining to water management, such as population, climate, and hydraulic infrastructure. Conjunctive water management between Mexico and the United States has a long and exemplary history. The border is more than 3,000 km long and is one of the busiest bi-national borders in the world, with a population increase index well above that of any of the two countries. This relationship started formally about a century ago with the signature of a Treaty in 1906 and has continued until the present time. As most relationships among neighboring countries, this one has not always been exempt from controversy and differences in opinions, but these divergences have always been solved with good will and taking both countries' interests into consideration. Problems related both with water quantity and quality have been present in the Mexico-USA relationship as well as, more recently, issues dealing with ecology conservation. Due to the greater activity at the border between the United States and Mexico, this region is more deeply described, but hydrologic problems and characteristics of the borders with Guatemala and Belize are also addressed.     

Evolution of Water Planning in New Mexico and Implications for Transboundary Groundwater Allocation

Abstract

Before 1983, the market allocated water in New Mexico under the prior-appropriation system; we prohibited export of groundwater to other states. We found, however, that the simple prohibition is unconstitutional, and that water can be withheld only if shown to be needed for the “public welfare.” Water planning began in 1987, to determine which waters (perhaps all) would be needed during the next 40 years. It has become clear that water planning has another value —the reconciliation of future supply with expected demands—which may provide more orderly reallocation than the market would, especially for aesthetic and environmental water uses that are not directly represented in the market. Our water planning seems to be supplanting the legal processes with negotiation, and to be shifting the emphasis from administration of water rights to management of real water. Diverse water-use interests within the planning regions in New Mexico are learning to negotiate their future water-management, and the 16 regions are beginning to interact with each other toward the same end. A strictly technical “wet-water” management plan that shows how the needs of all interests can be best met with the water and the capital available, and at least temporarily setting aside the legal issues, seems to be the best foundation for negotiation. The tentative settlement of a long, unfruitful legal struggle over the Pecos River is a case in point. The same principal seems promising for dealing with transboundary groundwater allocation on a larger scale.     

Water Quality Zoning Using Probabilistic Support Vector Machines and Self-Organizing Maps

Water quality zoning is an important step for studying and evaluating surface and groundwater quality variations with time and space. It can also provide important information for developing efficient water quality management strategies. Most common methods for water quality zoning do not consider the uncertainties associated with water resources systems. Also, these methods only categorize the water quality monitoring stations into some classes based on existing water quality but do not provide any information about the quality of water which is categorized in a class. In this paper, a new methodology for probabilistic water quality zoning is developed which utilizes the capabilities of Probabilistic Support Vector Machines (PSVMs) and Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). The required data for training the PSVM is generated by using the FIS in a Monte Carlo Analysis. The trained PSVM-based water quality index provides the probabilities of belonging quality of water to different water quality classes. The applicability of the proposed methodology is investigated by applying it to two surface and groundwater resources systems in Iran. Also, for more evaluating the efficiency of the methodology, the results are compared with those obtained from two clustering techniques, namely Fuzzy Clustering Technique (FCT) and Self-Organizing Map (SOM). The results of surface and ground water quality zoning are depicted in maps by utilizing the Geographic Information System (GIS).     

Frequency and Spatial Characteristics of Droughts in the Conchos River Basin,Mexico

Abstract

The temporal and spatial characteristics of droughts are investigated to provide a framework for sustainable water resources management in a semi-arid region. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) as an indicator of drought severity, the characteristics of droughts are examined in the Conchos River Basin in Mexico. This basin is important to both the United States and Mexico, because the Conchos River supplies approximately 80 percent of the flows of the Lower Bravo/Grande River above the binational reservoirs of Amistad and Falcon. The temporal and spatial characteristics of the PDSI are used to develop a drought intensity—areal extent—frequency curve that can assess the severity of a regional drought in the basin. The analysis of the PDSI suggests that the Conchos River Basin had a severe drought in the 1990s, which the basin has not experienced before. Based on this analysis, the recent drought that occurred in the 1990s has an associated return period of about 80 to 100 years over the basin.     

Communication as Part of an Environmental Strategy on Water

ABSTRACT

To achieve long-term sustainable water development in Mexico, it is essential that the population be sensitized on appropriate environmental and social issues. It would require communication, information, education, and public participation. Institutional understanding and capacity need to be developed for the effective implementation of water policies, programs, and projects, which in turn would require a determined attempt to institute a real communication program with the people whose lives could be affected by such activities.     

古北口水文站水质水量自动监测系统的应用分析

介绍了古北口水质水量监测站水量水质自动测报系统的水量监测情况，水质监测的工作流程、监测参数、监测范围及维护方法，通过实测数据分析了自动与实验室监测的差别及原因，对比水量水质自动监测中的优缺点，提出了自动监测站应注意的几个问题。古北口水质自动监测站的建成在提高站点水质信息采集的时效性，及时发现监测河段水污染事故等方面发挥了作用，为水环境管理、水资源利用等提供了决策依据。     

IWRA To Cosponsor Seminar

ABSTRACT

Users of streamflow data state that availability of data is essential for the achievement of efficient use of resources in design and management of flood protection and water supply projects. Collection and archiving of data is expensive and is not perceived by some as producing either immediate or obvious benifits. In a climate of declining government spending data acquisition is being cut. However; it has been shown that the benefits of data collection are very large, tens of times larger than the cost involved, The largest single use of data in Australia is for design of waterway crossings. For this application it is estimated that the benefits from data collection can be about ten times the cost of collection. For design of water supply dams data can be worth about jive times the cost of collection. The contribution of data from a single monitoring site to the design of a flood mitigation scheme could be anything from twice to one hundred times the cost of collection, However since only one or two new flood mitigation schemes are considered each year and for most other uses there is less data application, these other uses contribute a positive but small amount to the value of the data collection program. Taken as a whole, the network of seven hundred streamgauging stations in New South Wales, Australia is estimated to save the general community many times the cost of collection and archiving of the data.     

Water Quality in the Río Lerma,Mexico: An Overview of the Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century

The Río Lerma basin is the most important watershed in the Central Plateau of Mexico. Major urban, industrial, agricultural and livestock regions are located in its catchment area. Regarded as a center of endemism for its fish fauna diversity, it is also the most polluted watercourse in Mexico. This study assesses spatial and long temporal variations in water quality over the last 25 years with two approaches: the use of a water quality index multiplicative and weighted (WQI) and a principal component analysis (PCA). The general rating scale for WQI range on a 0–100 with 100 indicating highest water quality. WQI scores ranging from 26.53 to 67.44 denote Rio Lerma water is not fit for drinking, requires treatment for most industrial and crop uses, and is suitable for coarse fish only. Navigation is impracticable and inexistent. PCA shows the monitoring stations arrayed along a set of environmental parameter gradients. Several endemic fish species have been lost: two silver side food fishes are extinct, two more species (one of them a food fish) are endangered, and another three are threatened.     

基于数据驱动模型的入海污染源排污削减优化方法研究

陆源污染物排放是影响近岸海域水环境生态质量最重要的因素。建立了数据驱动模型人工神经网络算法和海域水质模型相耦合的入海污染源排污削减优化方法:基于水质模型污染源项设计工况的数值计算,获得海域内部观测点污染物浓度;以数据驱动模型人工神经网络算法建立状态变量(海域内部观测点污染物浓度)同控制变量(污染源项)之间的非线性关系;以海域内部观测点环境目标数据为输入,模拟推算出目标前提下的各污染源项入海允许排放量;最终结合实际排污量,核算获得削减量。以连云港徐圩海域4个入海污染源无机氮的排污削减研究验证方法的有效性,结果表明:数据驱动人工神经网络方法具有非线性、简洁、灵活的优点,可以为近岸海域水污染控制工作提供基础数据支撑;同时研究中采用分区排污削减的方式更能体现兼顾公平的基本原则,优化入海污染源排污削减工作。     

The Role of Technology in A Holistic Approach for Water Quality Conservation in Basins: The Lerma-Chapala Case

Abstract

Water quality conservation in river basins calls for a useful decision support tool as well as a holistic approach in which the development and application of appropiate technology plays an important role in adequately understanding the natural processess involved. In this paper, the experiences in a major Mexican watershed are presented. Data analysis, experimental work, and modeling are applied to create a reasonable approach to describing water pollution and predicting the behavior of contaminants in the Lerma-Chapala basin, Mexico. The main difficulty in the formulation of different models was identifying the required independent parameters. Interaction parameters between water and sediment phases played a predominant role in the pollutant transport processes. Therefore, the modeling approach included not only water but other phases involved in the migration of pollutants (water, soil, suspended sediments, bottom sediments, atmosphere).     

Water Supply System Performance for Different Pipe Materials Part I: Water Quality Analysis

The quality of potable water has been a major issue in the water industry for the last few decades. The deterioration of treated water can be due to physical, chemical or microbiological changes that occur in the water during distribution. In addition, pipe material and decay of a disinfectant agent can affect the quality of the water being distributed. In this study the purpose was to simulate the decay of chlorine in two networks, one made of old cast iron (CI) pipes and another of polyethylene (PE) pipes. In addition the performance of the network considering chlorine concentration, velocity, water age, and an intrusion of a contaminant – in this case organic material – into the network was evaluated. The simulations were performed with EPANET software using as the simulation network an example network from the program. It was found that the CI network requires higher initial chlorine concentrations than the PE network to maintain the required minimum chlorine concentration throughout the whole network. To maintain the chlorine concentrations required by WHO (Cl must be greater than 0.2 mg/l and lesser than 0.5 mg/l) re-chlorination stations were necessary to add into both networks. The performance of both networks before re-chlorination was low due to high initial chlorine concentrations, but after the addition of the re-chlorination stations it was 100% throughout the networks. The performance of the velocities was good in both networks. The performance of the water age was dependent mainly on the tank usage, and the performance of contamination by organic material depended on the coefficient that defines the decay rate of the organic material in the bulk phase.     

水质自动监测站建设与应用调研

对国内几大流域水质自动监测站的建设与应用情况进行调研,总结了自动监测站建设与应用经验,分析了存在的问题,并对水质自动监测站的建设与应用提出几点建议,使自动监测站更好地为水资源保护和监督管理服务。     

Environmental education for all engineers.

Environmental engineering education at universities is a rapidly changing field globally. Traditionally it has resided in the civil engineering program addressing water and wastewater quality, treatment, design and regulatory issues. In recent years environmental engineering has become a much broader field encompassing water, wastewater, soil pollution, air pollution, risk assessment, ecosystems, human health, toxicology, sustainable development, regulatory aspects and much more. The need to introduce environmental engineering/green engineering/pollution prevention/design for the environment concepts to undergraduate engineering students has become recognized to be increasingly important. This need is being driven in part through the US Engineering Accreditation Commission Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria 2000. Thus there has been a major shift in environmental engineering education and it no longer resides only within the civil engineering discipline. This paper focuses on the development of innovative curricula for a brand new engineering program at Rowan University that integrates environmental education for all engineers. A common course known as "engineering clinic" was developed for all engineering students throughout their eight semesters of engineering education. One of the clinic goals is to integrate engineering design and the environment. The program, in its seventh year, indicates successful implementation of environmental education in all four engineering disciplines in their course work and clinics.     

关于我国《生活饮用水卫生标准》实施情况的评估

综述了我国《生活饮用水卫生标准》(GB 5749-2006)106项水质指标实施情况,通过国家水质监测网的23个监测站,评估了全国104个城镇的284个供水厂的98项水质指标状况、检测能力以及存在的问题,分析了超标指标状况、超检指标状况以及不同工艺对各种污染物的去除能力,总结了需要进一步关注的水质指标和标准的后期执行、修订情况.     

综合水质标识指数法及单因子水质标识指数法在2013年官厅水库水质评价中的应用

综合水质标识指数评价法和单因子水质标识指数评价法是目前运用比较多的水质评价方法,尤其两种方法结合起来能完整地表达水体的综合水质信息,计算过程简单,既可进行定性评价,也可进行定量评价。本文应用综合水质标识指数法和单因子水质标识指数法选取代表性监测项目对北京市的重要水源地——官厅水库2013年的水质监测数据进行分析,评估官厅水库水体现状,为改善水质及生态环境提供科学依据,也为在北京市地表水源地水质评价中运用此类方法提供借鉴。     

Statutory Regulation of Water Quality in Modern Australia

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, there has been recent development, in human historical terms, of substances that can cause serious harm to human health, and also development of remarkable new analytical technologies capable of detecting substances at the atomic level. Despite this, Australia, though an advanced country, has not implemented any mandatory water quality standards or developed a program similar to well established U.S. or European programs. Presented in this paper is an analysis of the statutory regulatory methods for domestic water in mainland Australia. First, the paper briefly reviews the need for mandatory regulations as opposed to voluntary guidelines. Second, the development of guidelines for drinking water by the National Health and Medical Research Council is reviewed, followed by the legislative requirements in each of the five mainland States of Australia. Drinking water guidelines have been used to assist planning and management and were not construed to be legally enforceable mandatory standards. Health Acts in each State remain the primary statutory defenders of water quality, and the variability between Acts is considerable. Third, other legislation that states the necessity of a high quality of water but does not guarantee its deliverance for all uses is referenced as miscellaneous provisions supporting the need for a comprehensive risk reduction water quality program. The main organizations that supply water in Australia are listed along with the nature of their obligations to supply a quality product. Each State has specific water sanctions that attempt to safeguard water quality, but the legal rights of customers have not advanced substantially. The major administrative scheme in Australia that can enforce quality is licensing, and is this limited to the urban regions of Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia.     

Approximation of Metro Water District Basin Using Parallel Computing of Emulator Based Spatial Optimization (PCESO)

Metro Water District (MWD) is an agency that administers water distribution in a large geographic region. It targets for existing conditions with future projections of water resources for conservation, supply, and usage. Hence, it is required to show proper water resources management for MWD. Where the river basin profiles are projected to provide the water resources management with potential issues for MWD. Here, Upper Chattahoochee River (UCR) basin of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD) selected for the study area. UCR is one of the largest river basins in the MNGWPD and it provides drinking and primary receiving water for nearly 3.5 million people of Atlanta Metro Region. In this study, Parallel Computing of Emulator based Spatial Optimization (PCESO) framework developed for spatial optimization of large complex watersheds. The proposed framework optimizes the hydrological model by parallel computing, emulator fit, sampling design, and spatial optimization. The results showed that 1) the computational time required for spatial optimization was significantly reduced by 50%, 2) goodness-of-fit reached its threshold limit in all stations inclusive in reservoir containing stations, 3) the water balance components and the optimized parameter values with sensitivity index provided the physical phenomena of the study area and showed the approximate hydrological processes in MWD. Further, this proposed work incorporates into future climate data can provide an accurate hydrological analysis with water allocation issues like water use, demand, conservation, and supply for MWD and it helps to identify the water-related disasters floods and droughts.

     

Capacity Building for the Water Sector in Mexico An Analysis of Recent Efforts

Abstract

Present and future improvements in efficiency of the water sector in Mexico depend on the development of a cadre of well-trained professional managers in the public and private sectors, as well as on the strengthening of the private and public sector institutions. Considerable investments are needed, but the efforts will pay back in terms of more rational policy-making and management practices. This paper analyzes several important exercises on capacity building in Mexico, which took place between 1990 and 2000. Present efforts on capacity building, achievements, and concerns are also considered in terms of the training and education needed to build a new generation of water professionals who can meet the current challenges and the needs of the coming decades. The needs of the water sector in terms of capacity building have been assessed in Mexico several times in the past. The conclusions and the results have always been the same: there is an urgent need to develop better educated managers and water professionals, both in terms of numbers and skills. Even though the needs have been identified repeatedly for over a decade, and despite continuous official rhetorics on the importance and urgency of capacity building, no long-term country-specific program on capacity building has yet been developed, let alone implemented.