Asian Jr. of Microbiol. Biotech. Env. Sc. Vol. 17, No. (3) : 2015 : 593-601
© Global Science Publications
ISSN-0972-3005
*Corresponding author’s email: hussein.alkaisy@gmail.com
MODELLING OF SEWAGE QUALITY DURING RAINY SEASON
A.O. HUSSEIN*
1
, S. SHAHID
1
, K.N. BASIM
2
AND S. CHELLIAPAN
3
1
Department of Hydraulics and Hydrology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
81310, Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Karbala University, Karbala, Iraq
3
Razak School of Engineeringand Advance Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Key words: Pollution loading, Storm Water Management Model, Wastewater concentrations,
Geographic information systems.
Abstract–In the previous four decades, methodical research has been concentrated on the protection of water
resources, and especially on the contaminating consequence of the inner city of natural water bodies. One
approximation to this investigation has concerned the advancement of instruments to illustrate the
phenomena which takes place in the city watershed throughout both wet and dry times. This article aims
to determine the significant differences of the changes of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), and total
suspended solids (TSS) parameters in a wastewater in the sewer networks during rainy seasons for the
historic rainfall time series using SWMM5. For this purpose, thirty years (1980-2010) of rainfall, temperature
and sewer flow data of Karbala city of Iraq were collected, processed and employed for the modelling of the
pollution loading. The effects of land-use, population and impervious surface cover on the quality of storm
water were also analyzed. The results showed that the concentrations of BOD
5
and TSS increase significantly
after raining in the study area. The statistical tests showed the differences were significant (p<0.05). The
increase of the BOD5 was very high compared to TSS. It can be expected that the long-term simulations of
storm water pollution loading would be help to compare the benefits of different scenarios of the sewage-
treatment plan for the reduction of the pollution in the storm discharge.
INTRODUCTION
Modelling pollution loading in urban storm water is
important for non-point source pollution control
and water treatment. Majority of older urban area
centres including many old metropolitan towns in
the U.S. and Europe (New York City, Washington,
Paris, London, etc.) are discharged by merging
sewer systems. The magnitude of wet weather flow
(WWF) contaminant loads (Chebbo and Saget, 1995;
Veldkamp and Wiggers, 1997; Brombach et al., 2005;
Suarez and Puertas, 2005; Gasperi et al., 2010) and
subsequently caused acute impact on receiving
waters. With the advances of civilization,
agricultural lands, forests, and wetlands are
converted into municipal land uses. Urbanization
adversely alters watershed hydrology, contributing
to the deterioration of water resources and water
quality. The urban runoff is one of the factors that
have the most influence on the water quality of
water bodies (Characklis and Wiesner, 1997). The
cities where the rainfall is very sporadic and sparse,
sudden rainfall after a long dry spell often causes a
high level of pollution of the storm water. This
alteration includes increased runoff volumes and
peaks, decreased time of concentration, decreased
base flow recharge (Burns et al., 2005), and increases
as the non-point source (NPS) pollution in the
runoff (Ying and Sansalone, 2010a; Ying and
Sansalone, 2010b). Urban NPS pollutants include
suspended and dissolved solids, nutrients, oxygen-
demanding organisms, bacteria, pesticides, metals,
oil and grease. The transport of pollutants in the
runoff from the land areas into water bodies is a
natural process. However, urban city NPS pollution
is intensified by activities associated with
domestication. The most prevalent of these activities
include increased impervious surfaces (e.g., roads,
parking lots, sidewalks, roofs, and compacted
areas), increased application of fertilizers, pesticides
on municipal lawns and gardens, erosion from land
disturbance due to the construction activities.
Increasing use of vehicles also causes pollutant
inputs into the air and subsequent atmospheric