Managing Drinking Water Supplies

ABSTRACT

Efforts to provide safe drinking water cannot begin at the treatment plant. Processes occurring in the watershed can adversely influence drinking water reservoirs, and understanding linkages between these processes and reservoir water quality provides the basis for protecting or improving source water quality. Since the presence of molecules responsible for taste, odor and algal toxin problems, and for the formation of disinfection by-products (DBP) is often related to reservoir trophic conditions, sound and cost-effective water treatment approaches must include considerations for reservoir management. Source water management efforts should include both watershed management, as a means to reduce the loading of materials to the reservoirs, and in-reservoir treatments that ameliorate or minimize the symptoms of eutrophication. Discussed here are considerations for maintaining safe drinking water, water quality assessment approaches, and common methods for managing reservoir water quality.

Key Words:

• disinfection by-products
• drinking water
• reservoir management
• watershed management