Quality of Source Water and Drinking Water in Urban Areas of Myanmar

Myanmar is one of the least developed countries in the world, and very little information is available regarding the nation's water quality. This report gives an overview of the current situation in the country, presenting the results of various water-quality assessments in urban areas of Myanmar. River, dam, lake, and well water sources were examined and found to be of generally good quality. Both As and F − were present in relatively high concentrations and must be removed before deep wells are used. Heterotrophic plate counts in drinking water were highest in public pots, followed by nonpiped tap water, piped tap water, and bottled water. Measures need to be taken to improve low-quality water in pots and nonpiped tap waters

Insurance value of biodiversity in the Anthropocene is the full resilience value

Recently two distinctly different conceptualisations of insurance value of biodiversity/ ecosystems have been developed. The ecosystem framing addresses the full resilience value without singling out subjective risk preferences. Conversely, the economic framing focuses exactly on this subjective value of risk aversion, implying that the insurance value is zero for risk neutral persons. Here we analyse the differences conceptually and empirically, and relate this to the broader socio-cultural dimensions of social-ecological resilience. The uncertainty of the Anthropocene blurs the distinction between subjective/objective. We show that the economic framing has been operationalised only in specific cases while the broader literature on resilience, disaster risk reduction, and nature-based solutions tend to address the full value of resilience. Yet, the empirical literature that relates to insurance value of biodiversity is hardly consistent with resilience theory because the slow underlying variables defining resilience are rarely addressed. We suggest how the empirical literature on insurance value can be better aligned with resilience theory. Since the ecosystem framing of insurance value captures the essence of the resilience, we propose using the concept “resilience value” as it may reduce the present ambiguity in terminology and conceptualisation of insurance value of biodiversity. nsurance value of ecosystems Natural insurance value Ecosystem services General resilience Specified resiliencepublishedVersio

Impact of population growth and land use and land cover (LULC) changes on water quality in tourism-dependent economies using a geographically weighted regression approach

This paper aims to assess the influence of land use and land cover (LULC) indicators and population density on water quality parameters during dry and rainy seasons in a tourism area in Indonesia. This study applies least squares regression (OLS) and Pearson correlation analysis to see the relationship among factors, and all LULC and population density were significantly correlated with most of water quality parameter with P values of 0.01 and 0.05. For example, DO shows high correlation with population density, farm, and built-up in dry season; however, each observation point has different percentages of LULC and population density. The concentration value should be different over space since watershed characteristics and pollutions sources are not the same in the diverse locations. The geographically weighted regression (GWR) analyze the spatially varying relationships among population density, LULC categories (i.e., built-up areas, rice fields, farms, and forests), and 11 water quality indicators across three selected rivers (Ayung, Badung, and Mati) with different levels of tourism urbanization in Bali Province, Indonesia. The results explore that compared with OLS estimates, GWR performed well in terms of their R2 values and the Akaike information criterion (AIC) in all the parameters and seasons. Further, the findings exhibit population density as a critical indicator having a highly significant association with BOD and E. Coli parameters. Moreover, the built-up area has correlated positively to the water quality parameters (Ni, Pb, KMnO4 and TSS). The parameter DO is associated negatively with the built-up area, which indicates increasing built-up area tends to deteriorate the water quality. Hence, our findings can be used as input to provide a reference to the local governments and stakeholders for issuing policy on water and LULC for achieving a sustainable water environment in this region

Hybrid treatment systems for dye wastewater

Virtually all the known physico-chemical and biological techniques have been explored for treatment of extremely recalcitrant dye wastewater; none, however, has emerged as a panacea. A single universally applicable end-of-pipe solution appears to be unrealistic, and combination of appropriate techniques is deemed imperative to devise technically and economically feasible options. An in-depth evaluation of wide range of potential hybrid technologies delineated in literature along with plausible analyses of available cost information has been furnished. In addition to underscoring the indispensability of hybrid technologies, this paper also endorses the inclusion of energy and water reuse plan within the treatment scheme, and accordingly proposes a conceptual hybrid dye wastewater treatment system

Development of a submerged membrane fungi reactor for textile wastewater treatment

A submerged microfiltration membrane bioreactor implementing the white-rot fungus Coriolus versicolor was developed for the treatment of textile dye wastewater following explorations with different fouling-prevention techniques. The optimum combination ensuring permeate quality and precluding membrane fouling comprises of placing a bundle of hollow fibers within a non-woven coarse-pore (50–200 μm) mesh cage, so as to avoid direct deposition of sludge onto it, together with arrangements for its periodic high-pressure back-washing (3 s/10 min) and chemical back-flushing (100 ml/m2, every third day). Under controlled temperature (29±1°C) and pH (4.5±0.2), and applied HRT and an average flux of 15 h and 0.021 m/d, respectively, the reactor accomplished around 97% TOC and 99% color removal from the synthetic wastewater (TOC = 2 g/L; dye = 100 mg/L) for a prolonged period of observation. Realization of excellent stable pollutant removal along with alleviation of the membrane-fouling problem by employing reasonable chemical-cleaning dose presents the proposed novel system as an attractive one

Membrane coupled fungi reactor - an innovative approach to bioremediation of hazardous dye wastewater

Virtually all the known physico-chemical and biological techniques have been explored for treatment of extremely recalcitrant dye wastewater; none, however, has emerged as a panacea. A single universally applicable end-of-pipe solution appears to be unrealistic, and combination of appropriate techniques is deemed imperative to devise technically and economically feasible options. An in-depth evaluation of wide range of potential hybrid technologies delineated in literature along with plausible analyses of available cost information has been furnished. In addition to underscoring the indispensability of hybrid technologies, this paper also endorses the inclusion of energy and water reuse plan within the treatment scheme, and accordingly proposes a conceptual hybrid dye wastewater treatment system

Different fouling modes of submerged hollow-fiber and flat-sheet membranes induced by high strength wastewater with concurrent biofouling

Exploration of two major commercialized flat-sheet and hollow-fiber membranes in a submerged membrane fungi reactor fed with a synthetic textile wastewater revealed striking differences in the extent and mechanism of fouling between the two types, indicating a case-specific scope of choice between the two for industrial wastewater treatment. The hollow-fiber membrane exhibited fouling with a cake layer composed of fungi and starch, intensity being proportional to the operating flux (0.05–0.3 m/d). Conversely, the flat-sheet membrane suffered from immediate internal pore blocking beyond a critical flux of 0.2 m/d. During the experiment with major constituents of the synthetic wastewater separately, while media containing only starch and only dye induced negligible fouling, flux-dependent pore blocking was evident for both the hollow-fiber (0.288 m/d) and flat-sheet membranes (1.3 m/d) for the mixture of starch and dye. Despite a remarkable 99% color and 97% TOC removal achieved by both membranes, fouling with different modes and intensity for the two types under similar conditions and for the same type of membrane under different exposure conditions warrants development of suitable modules for such recalcitrant wastewater

Performance of newly developed hollow fiber module with spacer in integrated anaerobic–aerobic fungi reactor treating textile wastewater

A submerged microfiltration membrane bioreactor implementing the white-rot fungus Coriolus versicolor was developed for effective treatment of textile dye wastewater [1]. In that system membrane fouling was precluded by placing a bundle of hollow fibers within a pre-filtration assembly, so as to avoid direct deposition of sludge onto it, together with its periodic high-pressure back-washing and low-dose chemical back-flushing. However, the extreme vulnerability of the bare membrane used in that study to inter-fibral deposition of sludge leading to merging of fibers indicated necessity of development of an appropriate module so that the proposed system may enjoy more flexibility in terms of precluding fouling. This study reports superior performance, in terms of avoiding fouling, of newly developed hollow fiber module with spacer over that of usual hollow fiber bundles under severe operating conditions induced by high strength industrial wastewater with concomitant biofouling