Incorporating health considerations in water minimisation

Abstract

As climate change escalates, there is a need for proper planning of future use of water resources. The occurrence of prolonged droughts and fluctuation of weather patterns can lead to serious water scarcity issues. Process integration techniques have been widely used for water management in the process plants. This paper extends the insight-based and mathematical programming techniques of process integration to incorporate health aspects in water management. In particular, health quality index is used as a quality metric in considering water recovery in a system of processes. The consideration of health aspects is important for cases involving direct contact of human body with water, such as in water recreational activities. In addition, multi-period planning (MPP) is also considered in this work, where water recovery takes place across different periods. A representative water park case study is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method.