The balance of water consumption and sanitation is a necessary calculation in the design of any facilities and in water use

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

When designing any industrial or housing and communal facilities, agricultural facilities, a water management calculation is carried out. As a result, the volumes of water consumption and water disposal necessary for the normal household or industrial functioning of the designed facility become known.

Water management calculation in the special literature and regulatory documents has a name - the balance of water consumption and sanitation. Water consumption includes the full volume of water - drinking and technical, spent on the water supply of this facility. Water disposal - the volume of water from an enterprise (residential building) in the form of household or industrial effluents entering the centralized sewerage or filtration fields, on the terrain or diverted into a water body.

Balance of water consumption and sanitationcharacterizes the ratio of the volume of water entering the facility to the volume of liquid waste discharged from the facility after the use of water for domestic or industrial purposes. According to the principle of equilibrium (balance), the values of the volumes of water consumption and water disposal should be equal or differ by the amount of non-returnable water consumption, which is typical for enterprises that use water in the production of products (for example, the production of bottled water). Also, the volume of water disposal may differ from the volume of water consumption by the amount of water evaporation or its filtration into underground horizons (for example, discharge of wastewater from a gold recovery plant into a tailing dump of a large area).

The balance of water consumption and sanitation also includes the volume of precipitation entering the territory of the enterprise (melting snow, rain) and in the form of storm runoff entering the storm sewer.

One of the documents when obtaining a license (permit) for the use of a surface water body or for obtaining a license for the extraction of groundwater is the balance of water consumption and wastewater disposal. The same calculation is necessary when designing communications for an uninterrupted supply of water. Based on the design volume of water consumption, the geometric parameters of the pipelines, the power of the pumps for water supply are laid. The calculation of sewerage is needed for the accident-free removal of sewage from the service area with subsequent treatment of waste contaminated water at treatment facilities. Volumes receivedwater consumption and wastewater disposal are taken as the basis for the settlement fee when concluding a contract for the supply of water or for the reception of wastewater into the sewer system.

Examples of design calculations of water consumption and sanitation are given in reference and special literature, water use standards are indicated in building regulations. Recently, drinking water supply companies require consumers to equip water supply and sewerage networks with water meters, which helps to obtain accurate information about the actual volumes of water use.

When calculating water use, it is possible to determine the cost of electricity required for water production. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the loss of electrical energy to overcome obstacles in pipelines, since pumping equipment operates with a certain efficiency (efficiency factor).

Calculation of the balance of water use can be done by any competent engineer. Specialized institutions are gladly accepted for such calculations, but this service is not cheap.