Using simple and easy water quality parameters to predict trihalomethane occurrence in tap water

Zeqiong XU, Jiao SHEN, Yuqing QU, Huangfei CHEN, Xiaoling ZHOU, Huachang HONG, Hongjie SUN, Hongjun LIN, Wenjing DENG, Fuyong WU

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

66 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Monitoring of disinfection by-products (DBPs) in water supply system is important to ensure safety of drinking water. Yet it is a laborious job. Developing predictive DBPs models using simple and easy parameters is a promising way. Yet current models could not be well applied into practice because of the improper dataset (e.g. not from real tap water) they used or involving the parameters that are difficult to measure or require expensive instruments. In this study, four simple and easy water quality parameters (temperature, pH, UVA254 and Cl2) were used to predict trihalomethane (THMs) occurrence in tap water. Linear/log linear regression models (LRM) and radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF ANN) were adopted to develop the THMs models. 64 observations from tap water samples were used to develop and test models. Results showed that only one or two parameters entered LRMs, and their prediction ability was very limited (testing datasets: N25 = 46–69%, rp = 0.334–0.459). Different from LRM, the prediction accuracy of RBF ANNs developed with pH, temperature, UVA254 and Cl2 can be improved continuously by tweaking the maximum number of neuron (MN) and Gaussian function spread (S) until it reached best. The optimum RBF ANNs of T-THMs, TCM and BDCM were obtained when setting MN = 20, S = 100, 100.1 and 60, respectively, where the N25 and rp values for testing datasets reached 85–92% and 0.813–0.886, respectively. Accurate predictions of THMs by RBF ANNs with these four simple and easy parameters paved an economic and convenient way for THMs monitoring in real water supply system. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Article number131586
JournalChemosphere
Volume286
Issue numberPart 1
Early online dateJul 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2022

Citation

Xu, Z., Shen, J., Qu, Y., Chen, H., Zhou, X., Hong, H., . . . Wu, F. (2022). Using simple and easy water quality parameters to predict trihalomethane occurrence in tap water. Chemosphere, 286(Part 1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131586

Keywords

  • Water supply system
  • Trihalomethane
  • Prediction
  • Regression
  • Radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF ANN)

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