Water & Wastewater Asia January/February 2023

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FOCUS Mekong Delta that are not accessible via central supply networks. After decades of over-exploitation of groundwater reserves and severe droughts, as well as increasing pollution from wastewater discharges into water bodies, there is a shortage of clean raw water in many places. In those areas, small water pilot plants produce water supplies from low-polluted rainwater, frequently polluted groundwater and heavily polluted surface water from a river or canal. Groundwater needs to be conserved as much as possible in those areas, because the available reserves are running out and the lowering groundwater levels in the Mekong Delta will lead to permanent salinisation of the soils and soil subsidence, which could have enormous damage to structures and nature. This scenario was the impetus behind the ViWaT-Operation project. Depending on the season, location and current conditions, comparatively clean rainwater is preferred as the first choice of raw water supply. As the second choice, depending on the current demand situation and pollution, surface water is used. Only after the previous two options have been exhausted that groundwater is used as the third choice, to save as much of the groundwater reserves as possible. Additionally, wastewater can be treated for water reuse. A successful pilot for this has already been conducted by a shrimp farm to refill ponds for breeding sensitive baby shrimps, which can only survive in high-quality water. For the small waterworks, automationcapable mechanical-physical processes were used and chemical or biological components were dispensed with. The heart of the plant is an ultrafiltration module, with an upstream protective filter. To ensure operation under optimal working conditions, the unit prepared for remote monitoring and maintenance using the Aquacube made by Wilo/Martin Membrane-Systems. The company is responsible for water recycling Fig. 2: Participants of a ViWaT-Operation workshop in front of the ViWaT-MobiLab, which is used for the monitoring of the pilot plants in the Mekong Delta in cruise ships, with the technology being adapted to fit the specific requirements in the Mekong delta and equipped with advanced UV irradiation for water disinfection. Due to the disadvantageous combination of the natural water resources with iron and manganese, salt and organic contaminants, which are measured as total organic carbon (TOC), an additional pre-treatment system had to be installed at two of the three pilot sites. This pre-treatment consists of a free-air drip aeration with a gravity downflow multilayer filter, which was manufactured by local craftsmen, using a design template from IEEM. To desalinate the raw water during dry periods, it was necessary to install a reverse osmosis (RO) system at two of the three sites for post-purification of the otherwise clean water from the Aquacube. To reduce the operating costs from this process, portable water was made available with a separate tap made specifically for that purpose and offering domestic water, made without downstream RO treatment, through another tap, as seen in Fig. 1. Thus, the RO system runs only when the salinity would otherwise exceed the permissible values, and only for the partial flow that is called up for drinking water. As similar needs exist and are emerging from not just the Mekong Delta, but also in many other regions across the world, IEEM expects growing demand for this new type of water supply plant. According to Dr Rudolph, not only would this demand come from the coastal regions and river deltas, but also inland areas affected by salinisation of inland waters. In addition, he said, the need for MFDWS systems is expected to expand to regions where centralised systems of water are unable to be implemented. This would apply not only to countries plagued by war or civil turmoil, but also where the public water supply systems fail, or do not work reliably enough — whether for technical reasons, or simply due to state failure. In these places, consumers who depend on a reliable water supply would desire for decentralised small waterworks, even if they are only able to supply themselves autonomously in the event of a malfunction. For instance, in developing and emerging countries, better-quality hotels would have their own water reservoir for safety, in case of supply interruptions. The larger, top-quality hotels would often maintain the quality of their own drinking water supply which the hotel management and their customers could trust — at least as precaution. 44 WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023
FOCUS FOUR COUNTRIES, ONE RIVER, one data platform, one voice How the Mekong River Commission (MRC) aims to provide reliable, accurate water data to water authorities in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam using Aquarius Systems. By Nicole Nally, regional manager, Oceania, Aquatics Informatics monitoring, 48 water-quality sampling stations, 41 active ecology health sampling sites, over 100 fisheries monitoring sites, and other places. Prior to 2016, this data was collected in Excel spreadsheets, which made it difficult to work with and was limiting when it came to sharing meaningful outcomes. With the addition of sensors, MRC captured more data, but still received manual entry data from its member countries. Turning raw data into usable information required modern data management software. The Mekong River has been used by millions of people for transport, fishing, agriculture, and more recently, hydropower The Mekong River is the third largest river in Asia, originating in the Tibetan Plateau and running through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Millions of people rely on the river for transport, fishing, agriculture, and more recently, hydropower. Protecting this water and promoting collaborative sustainable use of the river is vital to the peace and prosperity of the region. The Mekong River Commission Secretariat (MRCS) is an intergovernmental organisation that is tasked with providing the basin’s four countries, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, with information to sustainably manage and share these water resources. To do this effectively, they require dialogue and cooperation, and a lot of data and information to support their analysis for balancing protection and development. MRC’s collection of data can be traced back to the 1950s, with scientists and researchers going into the field and measuring, recording, and cataloguing information. Today, MRC collects data from more than 600 stations, including: 73 automated telemetry hydrometeorological stations, 139 traditional stations for rainfall or water level Soukaseum Phichit, information system and database specialist of MRCS, said: “We recognised the need to centralise our data so that we could run quality assurances across the board and then turn this data into meaningful actionable insights that are easily accessible for all stakeholders in a timely manner. This was way beyond the limits of spreadsheets and manual entry.” MRCS chose the Aquarius Time Series, an analytics software programme that is used by monitoring agencies around the world to acquire, process, model, and publish data in real time. This would allow the four member countries to have access to the same data when they need it and further share the outcomes with other nations that are impacted by the Mekong River. WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 45
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Water & Wastewater Asia January/February 2023

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