Assessment of water quality in distribution networks through the lens of disinfection by-product rules

Disinfection with chlorine is a common practice to ensure secured drinking water, but results in  potentially harmful disinfection by-products (DBPs), when excess chlorination is done. The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has established Stage 1 and Stage 2 disinfection by-product Rules (DBP rules) to control DBP exposure. A modified version of the Canadian Council of Ministries of the Environment water quality index (CCME WQI) is used to assess water quality. CCME WQI is a  globally accepted index to assess water quality, but is too generic to be used for DBP rules. The study developed a scheme to make the index suitable for DBP rules. A scoring method based on an analytic  hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to assign weights based on DBP rules. A previously modified CCME WQI (Islam et al., 2014) is adapted along with the weights to perform the assessment at the distribution network (DN). A case study was performed on 7 sampling stations in a Québec City DN. The spatial water quality variations are presented using kriging – a geostatistical method, which identifies the regions with relatively poor water quality and highlights the potential locations for re-chlorination points. The proposed assessment formulation is flexible to handle situations with limited data, which makes it especially suited to smaller municipalities.Keywords: CCME water quality index, Stage 1 DBP Rule, Stage 2 DBP Rule, chlorinatio

Knowledge, attitude and practice regarding voluntary blood donation among Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University students in Bangladesh

Background: In developing countries like Bangladesh, the demand of blood supply is increasing every year. To ensure safe and adequate blood supply and to motivate voluntary donors in blood donation processes, this study was aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of blood donation among Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University students in Bangladesh.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 403 students (200 females and 203 males), using a self administered structured questionnaire.Results: 59.05% students had good knowledge about blood donation. The knowledge score was significantly higher (p<0.05) in female than male. Students positive attitudes toward voluntary blood donation included- blood donation saves life (62.8% strongly agreed, 32% agreed), donation is a moral activity (57.1% strongly agreed, 37.5% agreed), young are more suitable to donate blood (40% strongly agreed, 49.1% agreed), the best way of donation is voluntary non-remunerated (22.3% strongly agreed, 41.4% agreed). Their negative attitudes included - best way to donate blood is at the request of relatives (24.3% strongly agreed, 38% agreed), donation in paid (only 3% strongly agreed, 10.7% agreed) or something in exchange (only 1% strongly agreed, 8.9% agreed) and blood donors contract disease (3.5% strongly agreed, 27.8% agreed). Among the participants 34.2% donated blood and males donated significantly more than females (p<0.001). Physically females were significantly unfit for donating blood (p<0.001).Conclusions: Although having positive attitudes blood donation practice is not substantial among students especially in females. Interactive awareness and motivation packages should be created to enhance voluntary blood donation

Water quality management in small to medium sized distribution networks : optimizing chlorine disinfection strategies

Main objective of this research is to optimize booster chlorination to ensure high quality water in the distribution network (DN). Focus of this research is primarily small to medium sized DNs that lack continuous monitoring, where chlorination is the predominant disinfection practice to maintain acceptable drinking water quality. In this research, new methods and strategies have been proposed to help in selecting location and dosages for booster chlorination, which protects against microbiological contamination and biofilm growth but also limit formation of harmful disinfectant by-products (DBPs), and chlorine related taste & odors issues. This research developed index and risk based schemes to optimize water quality in DNs. Three indices have been proposed: 1) non-compliance potential index (NCP index), 2) modified Canadian Council of Ministries of the Environment Water Quality index (Modified CCME WQI), and 3) intrusion risk potential (IRP). NCP index has been developed to evaluate regulatory violations of DBPs using Bayesian Belief Network. The modified CCME WQI, an extension of commonly accepted CCME WQI, has been developed to evaluate Stage 1 and Stage 2 DBP rules. Risk based index (IRP) has been developed to identify potential intrusion points based on pollutant source, water main characteristics, soil properties, operational and land use factors and population served. Three optimization schemes and algorithms have been proposed to determine the number of booster locations and corresponding dosage levels. Modified CCME WQI has been used to select optimal dosage for booster chlorination using response surface optimization. It uses temporal series data for free residual chlorine (FRC) and converts into an index by maximizing water quality. Later another optimization algorithm has been developed to locate booster stations using FRC and total trihalomethane time series data. This algorithm is called maximum covering location problem, which has been developed using EPANET–MSX programmer’s toolkit integrated with Matlab coding. Third optimization algorithm has been developed to minimize the impacts of contaminant intrusion using booster chlorination. This scheme uses multi-objective genetic algorithm to select both location and dosages for booster chlorination. Proposed methods and strategies have been demonstrated using case studies on City of Kelowna and Quebec City DNs.Applied Science, Faculty ofEngineering, School of (Okanagan)Graduat

Evaluating source water protection strategies : a soft computing approach

Source water protection is an important step in the implementation of a multi-barrier approach that ensures delivery of safe drinking water cost effectively. However, implementing source water protection strategies can be a challenging task due to technical and administrative issues. Currently many decision support tools are available that mainly use complex mathematical formulations. These tools require large data sets to conduct the analysis, which make their use very limited. A simple soft-computing model is proposed in this research that can estimate and predict a reduction in the pollutant loads based on selected source water protection strategies that include storm water management ponds, vegetated filter strips, and pollution control by agricultural practice. The proposed model uses an export coefficient approach and number of animals to calculate the pollutant loads generated from different land uses (e.g., agricultural lands, forests, roads, livestock, and pasture). A surrogate measure, water quality index, is used for the water assessment after the pollutant loads are discharged into the source water. To demonstrate the proof of concept of the proposed model, a Page Creek Case Study in Clayburn Watershed (British Columbia, Canada) was conducted. The results show that rapid urban development and improperly managed agricultural area have the most adverse effects on the source water quality. On the other hand, forests were found to be the best land use around the source water that ensures acceptable drinking water quality with a minimal requirement for treatment. The proposed model can help decision-makers at different levels of government (Federal/ Provincial/ Municipal) to make informed decisions related to land use, resource allocation and capital investmentApplied Science, Faculty ofEngineering, School of (Okanagan)Graduat

Physico-Chemical Analysis and Composition of Camel Milk of Bangladesh

Camel farming is increasing in Bangladesh but the nutritious value of the produced milk has not been studied in this geological location. The milk was coagulated by citric acid and the coagulated solid i.e. the casein (7%) and pure serum (14%) were obtained. Fat content was determined by extracting casein and the aqueous serum, separately with n-hexane and found 2.59% and 5.79%, respectively. The fatty acids in the fat from casein and serum were made into their methyl ester by saponification followed by esterification and analyzed by GC-FID. Palmitoleic, oleic and linoleic acids were predominant fatty acids found in the analyzed samples while stearic, arachidic, behenic and myristic acids were present as minor acids. Water, ash, nitrogen and lactose contents in the milk were 84%, 0.88%, 1.62% and 9.32%, respectively. The presence of vitamin B1, B2 and B6 were estimated by UV-VIS spectrophotometer and found 388, 64 and 116 ppm, respectively

Physico-Chemical Analysis and Composition of Camel Milk of Bangladesh

Camel farming is increasing in Bangladesh but the nutritious value of the produced milk has not been studied in this geological location. The milk was coagulated by citric acid and the coagulated solid i.e. the casein (7%) and pure serum (14%) were obtained. Fat content was determined by extracting casein and the aqueous serum, separately with n-hexane and found 2.59% and 5.79%, respectively. The fatty acids in the fat from casein and serum were made into their methyl ester by saponification followed by esterification and analyzed by GC-FID. Palmitoleic, oleic and linoleic acids were predominant fatty acids found in the analyzed samples while stearic, arachidic, behenic and myristic acids were present as minor acids. Water, ash, nitrogen and lactose contents in the milk were 84%, 0.88%, 1.62% and 9.32%, respectively. The presence of vitamin B1, B2 and B6 were estimated by UV-VIS spectrophotometer and found 388, 64 and 116 ppm, respectively

Group Inequality and Environmental Sustainability: Insights from Bangladesh and Kenyan Forest Commons

The paper contributes to understanding the interactions of environmental and social dimensions of sustainability in situations of acute group inequalities. Using case studies of Mount Elgon in Kenya and Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh it shows the importance of ethnicity based inequalities in defining sustainability outcomes. The paper explores, first, the mechanisms through which dominant ethnic groups are able to exert influence on resource management at the expense of less powerful groups; and second, the consequences of ethnic inequalities for resource uses within ostensibly democratic systems. It combines information from social and political history with remote sensing data to explore causes, processes and patterns behind spatial trends in the study of forests. The paper concludes that efficacy of national democracy and its institutions in achieving positive environmental outcomes depends on the power relations among social groups, particularly in historically contested contexts. Further, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability cannot be treated separately and the issue of equity among groups, ethnic or otherwise, needs to be recognised in policies for sustainable development. The study points out the need for further research into integrating socio-political history with spatial data to better understand social and spatial distribution of policy impacts

Integrated management of Fusarium wilt of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris with microbial antagonist, botanical extract sp. ciceris with microbial antagonist, botanical extract

The present study was carried out to assess the efficacy of an integrated management strategy for Fusarium wilt of chickpea that combined the use of microbial antagonist, botanical extract and fungicide. Before setting the experiment in field micro plots, a series of in vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted to select a virulent isolate of F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris, an effective antagonistic isolate of Trichoderma harzianum, a fungitoxic botanical extract and an appropriate fungicide. The isolate FS1 of F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris appeared to be most virulent to chickpea cultivar BU-Chola-1 and selected as test pathogen. Among the 20 isolates screened, T. harzianum isolate T-75 showed the highest (75.89%) inhibition of the radial growth of F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris in dual culture assay on PDA. Absolute inhibition (100.00%) of colony growth of F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris was observed where fungicide Provax-200 at 100 ppm was used. Azadirachta indica leaf extract gave maximum inhibition (55.19%) of radial growth of F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris at all concentrations. The integration of soil treatment with T. harzianum isolate T-75 and Az. indica leaf extract and seed treatment with Provax-200 appeared to be significantly superior in reducing Fusarium wilt and in improving seed yield of chickpea compared to any single or dual application of them in the field. The results of this study exhibit the importance of integrating selective microbial antagonist, botanical extract and fungicide to achieve appropriate management of Fusarium wilt and increase of seed yield in chickpea in Bangladesh.Keywords: Integrated management, Fusarium wilt, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris, chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), antagonists, botanicals, fungicides.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(29), pp. 4699-470

Effect of nutrient and weed management strategies on the yield performance of boro rice cv. BRRI dhan63

An experiment was conducted to study the yield components and yield of Boro rice (cv. BRRI dhan63) under different nutrient and weed management strategies. The experiment was laid out in a two factor randomized complete block design with three replications consisting of four nutrient management strategies viz. cowdung 10 t ha-1, recommended dose of chemical fertilizer (urea, triple super phosphate, muriate of potash, gypsum and zinc sulphate @ 258, 101, 120, 113 and 11.5 kg ha-1, respectively), 75% recommended dose of chemical fertilizer + cowdung 5 t ha-1 and 50% recommended dose of chemical fertilizer + cowdung 10 t ha-1; and five weed management strategies viz. weedy check, hand weeding twice at 15 and 30 days after transplanting (DAT), pre-emergence herbicide Panida at 3 DAT, post-emergence herbicide Granite at 10 DAT and Panida at 3 DAT + Granite at 10 DAT. Yield components and yield of Boro rice cv. BRRI dhan63 were significantly influenced by nutrient and weed management strategies. Application of 75% recommended dose of chemical fertilizer + cowdung 5 t ha-1 showed the highest values for all yield components and produced the highest grain yield (6.24 t ha-1) while among the weed management strategies, Panida at 3 DAT + Granite at 10 DAT produced the highest grain yield (6.39 t ha-1) and the interaction of this two treatments also produced the highest grain yield (6.97 t ha-1). Among the different nutrient management strategies, cowdung 10 t ha-1 produced the lowest values of most of the yield contributing characters and grain yield (4.92 t ha-1) while in case of weed management strategies weedy check produced the lowest grain yield (4.55 t ha-1) and the interaction of this two treatments also produced the lowest grain yield (4.05 t ha-1). Therefore, it can be concluded that 75% recommended dose of chemical fertilizer + cowdung 5 t ha-1 combined with Panida at 3 DAT + Granite at 10 DAT can be practiced for the cultivation of Boro rice cv. BRRI dhan63 to obtain the highest grain yield. [Fundam Appl Agric 2018; 3(2.000): 491-497