We are now entering the third year of publishing the Urban Water Journal with Taylor & Francis and can proudly say that we have cleared the backlog of papers caused by the discontinuity in publishing in the year 2003 (our “gap year”). We have reached a level of steady inflow of quality papers which guarantees safe publishing for the years to come. However, there is no room for complacency. We are all aware of the fact that the Urban Water Journal fills an important gap in the scientific and professional journals in the field and that it is much needed. However, to sustain publishing in a highly vibrant and changeable market, we have to make sure that together with the publisher we have to both develop and gradually broaden our community of contributing authors and extend our readership. In this respect we need support from all involved in this joint endeavour:
existing subscribers; | |||||
contributing authors; | |||||
members of the Editorial Board and Associate Editors; | |||||
professional associations such as IAHR which are joining the journal. | |||||
Additionally, as we updated you recently, we have reached an agreement with the publisher to produce a series of monographs on urban water management, which will be complementary to the journal. This project is starting to be implemented. It has been agreed with UNESCO IHP to make the first books from this series available in September 2007 on the occasion of the final event of the IHP VI programme in this area. The event is planned to take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. We invite potential authors to consider publishing their future books in this series.
On a personal note we'd like to update you on David Butler's move to the University of Exeter where he will be professor of water engineering and co-director of the Centre for Water Systems with Professor Dragan Savic. David will remain as co-editor-in-chief.
In this issue of the journal we are pleased publish an interesting selection of papers dealing with specific aspects of waste water, drinking water and storm water management following our practice of emphasising issues and advances across the urban water cycle.
The first paper, entitled ‘The characteristics of household wastewater and biodegradable solid waste – a proposal for new Swedish design values’ authored by B. Vinnerås, H. Palmquist, P. Balmér and H. Jönsson, presents Swedish design values (DV) for urine, faeces, greywater and biodegradable solid waste, which were scrutinised and compared with the composition of these fractions in two local blocks of flats. For evaluation of the greywater composition, two additional areas were included, and a calculation based upon the composition of the sewage sludge in Ryaverken sewage treatment plant in Gothenburg. Based on the results, new updated Swedish DV were proposed for these parameters in the fractions urine, faeces, greywater and biodegradable solid waste.
The second paper, ‘Phytotoxicity of grey wastewater evaluated by toxicity tests’ by E. Eriksson, A. Baun, M. Henze and A. Ledin, deals with an evaluation of the phytotoxicity of grey water from different sources based on the algal growth inhibition test and a short-term acute assay for willows. The investigation showed that untreated grey wastewater could pose an environmental hazard if discharged into small-size receiving waters. Discharge to willow evaporation beds is problematic and toxic effects may be encountered, but compared to direct discharge to surface water the risks of toxic effects are much less pronounced.
The third paper, ‘Burst detection using hydraulic data from water distribution system with artificial neural networks’ by S.R. Mounce and J. Machell, presents research into the application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for analysis of data from sensors measuring hydraulic parameters (flow and pressure) of the flow in treated water distribution systems. Two neural architectures (Static and time delay) were applied for time series pattern classification from the perspective of detecting leakage. Results are presented using data from an experimental site in a distribution system of a UK water company in which bursts were simulated by hydrant flushing. Field trials have shown how ANNs can be used effectively for a leakage detection task. Both ANNs learned patterns of leaks/bursts; however, the time delay neural network showed improved performance over the static network. It was concluded that the effectiveness of an ANN in discovering relationships within the data is dependent upon two key factors: availability of sufficient exemplars and data quality.
The fourth paper ‘Substance flow analyses of the wastewater collection and treatment system’ by L. Benedetti, G. Dirckx, D. Bixio, Ch. Thoeye and P.A. Vanrolleghem, presents an investigation of the general adequacy of substance flow analysis (SFA) for urban wastewater systems (urban catchment, sewer, WWTP, receiving water). The paper provides a description of the approach and a useful demonstration of the method through the illustration of a case study. The study considered the fluxes of six substances going to, through and from the wastewater management system. The results suggest that the proposed methodology can be used for the identification of stressors on the receiving water bodies (such as suggested by the EU Water Framework Directive – WFD) and highlights that the scale dependency of results in such studies is of primary importance.
The fifth paper, ‘Compositions of first flush and composite storm water runoff in small urban and rural watersheds, North-Central Texas’ by P.F. Hudak and K.E. Banks, presents the results of a study on the evaluation of chemical composition of first flush and composite storm water runoff in four small, mixed land use watersheds in north-central Texas. The watersheds range from urban to rural, all discharging to a local lake providing aquatic habitat, recreation, flood control, and drinking water. Water samples were analyzed for suspended solids, pesticides (diazinon, triazine, and chlorpyrifos), nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), faecal coliforms, and metals. Observed concentrations of most parameters were low relative to drinking water maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) and aquatic life criteria. Faecal coliforms and lead were detected in most samples, with highest lead concentrations in the most developed watershed, likely influenced by building material and automobile traffic. Pesticide concentrations were higher in an initial spring storm event following applications to control weeds and insects. Typical of urban runoff, most ammonia and phosphorus observations exceeded freshwater criteria for streams draining to lakes. Treated wastewater effluent accounted for the highest nitrogen and phosphorus observations. For most constituents, composite concentrations exceeded first flush concentrations, though differences were significant only for fecal coliforms.
Professor Čedo Maksimović
Professor David Butler