Building Services QSB 1714/BLD 60403Lecturer: Leong Boon Tik

Yee Algel0315890Bo Yong Khong 0316317

Chin Tze Wei 0315767Hoo Bung JIat 0316092

Lee Kit Hung 0315722Yeoh Pooi Ching 0315540

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE • BUILDING • DESIGN

Bachelor of Quantity Surveying (Honours)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction................................................................................3

2. Installation of the Water Treatment Plant...................................5

3. Management of Water Treatment Plant.....................................5

4. The Advantages and Disadvantages.........................................6

5. Case Study................................................................................8

6. Possible Problem to the system...............................................20

7. Recommendation to future improvement.................................21

8. Learning outcome....................................................................22

9. References...............................................................................23

10. Appendix..................................................................................24

2

Introduction

About 71% of the Earth's surface is water-covered. Water is very important for

human being and water resource development has been a catalyst for socioeconomic of

the country. Water is one of the precious elements in the Earth. Water is closely related

to human health as there is about 70% of water found in human bodies. The increased

demand for clean water has led to competition in water use among the various water

user sectors and the continued economic growth will magnify this even more accurately.

In recent years, consumers are concerned with the quality of water that came from the

water treatment system.

Drinking water mostly comes from both surface water and ground water. Water

cycle begins with rainwater falling into lakes and rivers which interact with ground water.

The huge volume and flow conditions causing the quality of natural water cannot be

maintain within the body of water. Drops of water from the source that go through the

treatment process may be treated differently in different communities depending on the

quality of the water which enters the plant. The treatment plant is designed in such a

way that it allows operators, technicians or staff to operating on the water treatment

system, emphasizing safe practices and procedures. They have knowledge to control

and reduce odours in drinking water, perform basic water laboratory procedures, and

solve arithmetic problems commonly associated with water treatment plant operations.

In Malaysia, the privatisation of water services started in the 1990s. Since the

investment in water supply are independent and had been a responsibility of the 13

states of Malaysia, with no significant role for the federal government. Although Malaysia

is a federal state, most states depend on funds that transfer from the federal

government. Self-supplied industrial water nationwide is estimated to be more than

200% of municipal demand. The requirement for water quantity in commercial and

industrial purposes has been related to such factors as units produced, employed

workers, or establishment of the floor area. This varies locally as it is depending on

whether there are large industries and desire to obtain water from the municipal system.

Without this treatment plant systems, water that flows out from tap will contain

massive number of pollution, garbage unfit for consumption. Intake water that contain

harmful bacteria and viruses will cause health problem and some diseases take time to

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present visible signs, but it does not mean they are inactive in your organism. Water

purifiers are designed to eliminate and reduce certain pollutants (nitrates, pesticides,

heavy metals, organic materials...), as well as improve the quality taste of water

(eliminating chlorine).  Therefore, manufacturers and distributors of domestic water

treatment systems took this opportunity to promote their own water filtration systems.

Different types of domestic water treatment systems have been introduced to the public.

Different state has different water treatment system.

4

Installation of the Water Treatment Plant

A water treatment plant is served to provide clean and safe water to the

customers. To supply the customer clean and safe water, there are several principal

considerations in the design of the water treatment plant.

First of all, the authority shall inspect the water demand and the water treatment

plant capacity before starting to construct a water treatment plant. This is to ensure it

fulfills the water demand of the customer.

Besides, the proposed site shall be examined by the design engineer before it

started to be constructed. There are certain such as the way of building the plant,

interface with existing facilities and building materials used in construction of treatment

plant. Other than that, it is a necessity for the treatment plant to have a long lasting and

durable structure equipped with low maintenance cost.

Furthermore, a water treatment plant is generally built near to a natural source of

water storage area such as lake and river in order easily obtain raw water from the

natural sources.

Management of Water Treatment Plant

The authority is responsible to provide, operate and maintaining a treatment plant

consistently performs at a cost effective level. They are also required to manage the

operation and maintenance cost to provide the community a economical treated water.

According to the Tchobanoglous(1991), one of the principal tools used for plant startup,

operation, and maintenance is the operations and maintenance (O&M) manual. The

authority shall follow the O&M manual to efficiently operate and maintain their facilities.

In order to manage the water treatment plant, our country has privatize the water

treatment plant to a few company. Privatization means to authorize private company and

operation of the plants to entitle those companies to perform their duty. This may

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enhance the operating efficiencies and reduce the burden of the government in

managing the water treatment plant.

The Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

First of all water treatment for domestic water supplies have provided numerous

of benefits to us and also to the environment. It eases the need of clean water in our

daily life. The raw water that we obtain from various sources such as from lake and

stream contain several kinds of impurities which are not safe to consume yet. Therefore,

with the existence of water treatment plant, it filters all away the debris, impurities,

bacteria, virus, chemical and any other pollutants away. Waste water is also treated

before it release to the ecosystem.

The water treatment process is capable of removing more than 90% of

suspended solids from the water by different layers of treatment process such as

coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection. Then only the

supplied domestic water is safe and clean to use. Generally, there are some elements

which are unable to be 100% segregated from the water treatment process but it is

definitely safe to be consumed.

The water treatment is also easy to be maintained. As the treatment system can

be self sustaining. Thus, it is cost effective.

Disadvantages

Although the water treatment of domestic supplies in Malaysia meets the

requirement World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards, it still lack of improvement

and using the old fashion way to purified the water. Our neighbour country, Singapore

which leads the world wide world to a new era by purifying sewage water to drinking

water by their advance treated process. However, our country is rich with the natural

resources and causes us to stay in a comfortable zone. Comparing to Singapore, they

are lack of natural resources which enlighten them to be more innovative and creative to

invent the water recycling process(a process treat waste water so it can be consumed

again) to purify the sewage water to become drinkable clean water. The inefficient water

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treatment management system in our country has leads to water shortage and caused

water rationing in some city area in the year of 2014. Not only because of the hot and

dry climate condition but also due to the water infrastructure problems that of ammonia

contamination in some water treatment plant. Besides, political deadlock in negotiations

between the government and private water concessionaires also played central roles in

this water shortage incident.

Besides, our country water treatment system is lack of the membrane process or

so called the reverse osmosis process. This process can treat aesthetic contaminants

that cause unpleasant taste, colour and odour problems (Spellman & Drinan2012).

Therefore, commonly the residents of Malaysia would have to spend extra cost to install

water filter machine to ensure the water is bacteria free.

Another concern that we should have aware of that with the increase of numbers

in human population, the more the water treatment plants that we need in order to

provide the sufficient needs. Construction of new water treatment plants do impact to the

ecosystem. Ecosystem was destroyed to build the plants which also make us a loss of

natural water treatment area.

7

Case Study

Malaysia is a country located in South East Asia which got its independence from

Britain in 1957. It is made up of 13 states and three federal territories. It is divided into

east and west Malaysia where the west is a peninsular bordering with Thailand in the

north and Singapore in the south while the East is on the island of Borneo which borders

Brunei and Indonesia.

The climate is Equatorial with seasonal monsoon between the months of

November to January that affects the northern states of peninsular Malaysia. The

population of Malaysia is about 28 million based on the 2010 census. Currently there is a

total of about 430 water treatment plants being operated by various water supply

authorities in Malaysia. Of these 80% are conventional in treatment capability and 20%

are sub conventional which is possessing only parts of a complete conventional

treatment processes and capability.

The sources for all the water treatment plants are rivers and problems from the

rivers such as flooding and contamination will be elevated in the water treatment plants.

Most of the water treatment plants are monitored 24 hours a day by technical teams

leaded by a technician not engineer and so some emergency decisions are taken by the

technician. In large water treatment plant where the work are computerised then

engineers are stationed there to make the necessary decisions.

Water Treatment – Urban

The urban population are where all the large towns and cities are located and

most of the water treatment plants are using the rapid gravity filtration system. The

whole process of water treatment is Aeration, Coagulation and Flocculation,

Sedimentation, Filtration and Disinfection.

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Most of the urban water source in Malaysia is from surface water taken from

streams, rivers and lake. The surface water originates from ground water outflows and

partly from rainwater that had flowed over the ground to the receiving bodies of surface

water. The ground water outflows will bring dissolved solids into the surface water where

the surface run-off is the main contributor of turbidity and organic matter as well as

pathogenic organisms.

In rivers, the dissolved mineral particles remain uncharged but the organic

impurities are degraded through chemical and microbial processes. Most rivers in

Malaysia does not required any treatment four decades ago and are suitable for drinking

but now are polluted because of effluents discharge from industries and plantations. The

three principal sources of polluting rivers are the organic wastes from sewage and

discharges from oil-palm and rubber factories.

The range and complexity of water pollution problems caused by discharged of

non agro-based industrial effluents has increased especially in industrial centres. The

main industrial sources of pollution come from electroplating industries, tanneries, textile

mills, food processing industries, chlorine-alkali plants, distilleries, electronic factories

and sulphuric acid plants. A considerable lot of these industries discharge wastes

containing different compounds including heavy metals into public water course without

any prior water treatment. Critical levels of toxic heavy metals have been found in some

river basin like the Juru River Basin.

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WATER TREATMENT PROCESS

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SCREENING

The first stage of the preliminary treatment usually involves a simple screening or

straining operation to remove large solids. A coarse screen with openings of about

75mm is used to prevent large objects from reaching the intake. The main screen is

usually provided in the form of a mesh with openings of up to 5-20mm. The screenings

removed from water are normally returned to the source downstream of the abstraction

point. Afterwards micro straining is used for the removal of algae and similar-size

particle.

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Figure 1 Screening Process

AERATION

The water from the river is pumped up to a reservoir or plain sedimentation tank and

from there the water is aerated for the purpose of:

1. increasing the oxygen content

2. reducing the carbon dioxide content

3. removing hydrogen sulfide, methane and various volatile organic compounds

responsible for taste and odour

The purpose of (a) and (c) above are useful in the production of good drinking water.

Aeration is widely used for the treatment of ground water having too high in iron and

manganese content.

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Figure 2 Treatment Process

Figure 3 Coagulation and Flocculation Process

COAGULATION AND FLOCCULATION

The development of rapid gravity sand filter (RGF) has emphasized the need to

eliminate as much as possible the particles of suspended matter through processes

known as coagulation and flocculation. The process of coagulation is to treat raw water

with chemicals usually aluminium sulfate to coagulate the particles but sometimes ferric

sulfate, ferrous sulfate and sodium aluminate are also added. While flocculation is the

growth of coagulated particles by uniting the colloidal and larger particles of suspended

matter together, leading to an easier settlement and a more effective filtration

Figure 4 Sedimention Process

SEDIMENTATION

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There are two sedimentation processes occurring. One is after the intake from the

river (plain sedimentation) where the settling of suspended matter without the aid of

chemical coagulation. Sometimes pre-chlorination is recommended at low dosage to

avoid THM. The second one is after coagulation/flocculation and for better results and

improved utilisation of settling basins by using the chemical coagulant before going

through the filtration process. Then, the alum sludge is accumulated at the bottom of the

basin is needed to be removed from time to time. The sludge is not difficult to be

biodegrade and sometimes is dumped back into the river.

Figure 5 Filtration Process

FILTRATION

The most commonly used filtration type is the rapid gravity sand filters (RGF) and in

some parts of the country slow sand filters (SSF) are still being used. The basic principal

of filtration is to filter out the tiny floating floes which escape the opportunity to settle at

the basin.

The best single process that can effect an improvement in the physical, chemical

and bacteriological quality side of normal surface water is the slow sand. The

advantages of slow sand filter in developing countries are:

1. The cost of construction is low especially where manual labour is used.

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2. Simplicity of design and operation means that filters can be built and used with

limited technical supervision. No special pipework, equipment or instruments are

needed.

3. The labour required for maintenance can be unskilled as major job such as

cleaning the beds can be done by hand.

4. Imports of materials and equipment can be negligible and no chemicals are

required.

5. Power is not required if a fall is available on site as long as there are no moving

parts or requirements for compressed air or high pressure water.

6. Variation in raw water quality and temperature can be accommodated, provided

turbidity does not become excessive and overloading for short periods does no

harm.

7. Water is saved because of no backwashing.

8. Sludge is less troublesome as its quantity is small and easily dewatered.

DISINFECTION

Disinfection by chlorination is the procedure of killing illness causing microorganism

in water through the use of germicidal effect of chlorine. The bacteria are killed when it

were oxidised by chlorine but the effect is not immediate and instant. It requires

minimum duration for the contact time between chlorine and bacteria about 20 minutes.

Chlorine residual is the remained chlorine constituent after the application of chlorine in

the treatment process.

Chlorine residuals are of two kinds, which are combined chlorine residual and free

chlorine residual. Free chlorine residual has better disinfection effect than combined

chlorine residual, but for it to be used and applied throughout the pipe network then

heavy dosage of chlorination is necessary.

The World Health Organisation has recommended that there should be about 0.1 to

0.2 ppm of free chlorine residual throughout the water distribution network.

RURAL WATER TREATMENT

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The water treatment plant in the rural or villages are usually the sub conventional

system or the disinfection of wells like for example ground water. The villages which are

far from the public water distribution system will have to rely on ground water from wells,

rainwater and springs.

Microfiltration, Reverse Osmosis and Ultraviolet Disinfection

On the other hand, there are 3 advance processes which are not applied in our

country water treatment system as our country does rich in natural water resources. With

these processes, the waste water could be treated as clean as drinking water. However,

to some of the country like Singapore they have limited water resources therefore its

essential for them to recycle the waste water and they named is as NEWater.

The primary stage of the process is Microfiltration. Water that goes through this

membrane process contains only organic molecules and dissolved salts. Other

compound such as virus, bacteria, dirt and suspended solids were segregated and

remain in the membrane.

After that, the water is passed through the Reverse Osmosis process which is a

semi permeable membrane that only allows very small particles to pass through. This

process could filter away small particles like viruses, metal compound, some organic

compound and any other contaminants. Accordingly, the water now is almost as clean

as drinking water that only contains a tiny amount of salts and organic substance.

To ensure the quality of water, the water goes through further treatment by using

the ultraviolet disinfection to kill all living microorganisms in the water. This enhances the

purity and quality of the NEWater.

Lastly, the water was regulated to a restore to a certain pH level with the addition

of alkaline chemicals.

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Domestic Water Supplier Company in Malaysia

Figure 6 Water Rates in Malaysia

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Figure 7 Water Distribution Company in Malaysia

Water is one of the central issues in the 21st century in Malaysia. Of all the

issues related with water management, water governance is considered of primary

importance. According to UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), water

governance refers to the range of economic, political, social, and administrative systems

that are set to develop and manage water resources as well as the delivery of water

services at different levels of the society.

Klang Valley is a part of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur territory. In 1998, a large

portion of Klang Valley experienced a water crisis when the three reservoir dams namely

Batu Dam, Klang Gates Dam, and Semenyih Dam suffered a substantial drop in water

level due to the El Nino phenomenon. The water shortage consequently affected almost

all the residents residing there causing the government to step in and impose water

rationing prior to the 1998 Commonwealth Games hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile just recently since February 2014, another water crisis was happened

in the Selangor state, Malaysia until April 2014. Unfortunately Klang Valley is again one

of the areas that fare worst from it due to hot and dry seasons. In Selangor, the 5

reservoir dams in the state suffered a considerable drop in water level. Then water

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rationing begins to be imposed in the state on 25 February. However on 29 March 2014,

it was revealed that water rationing in Putrajaya, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and

Selangor has been extended to April 30. The is country's worst ever recorded was in

1998 when 4.2 million people had to share the 2,553 million liters per day, a drop of 105

million liters per day. But this time, the need for 7.1 million users of 4,900 million liters

per day had reduced to 4,367 million liters per day, down by 533 million liters per day.

Causes

In the year of 2014, the extreme hot and dry weather in our country and lack of

rainfall in the water catchment area had gradually causes the raw water sources to be

out of supplied.

Besides, the offline of water treatment plant in selangor because of ammonia

pollution which causess the water to be unsafe to be consumed.

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Possible Problem to the system

There are several issues which may cause problem to the system.

Garbage

The garbage deliver by the fishing enthusiasts as paper, aluminum, elastic,

glass, plastic, sustenance are gathered and deposited into the water store. These things

take from 2 weeks to 200 years to break down. At the point when such things enter the

reservoir, they cause water contamination as well as damage creatures in the capacity.

These garbage influence the quality and also the taste and odour of the water.

Industrial waste

Industries produce enormous measure of waste which contains harmful

chemicals and contamination which can bring about air pollution and harm to us and our

surroundings.

Shortage of Water Filtrations Systems

The primary reason that makes people sick from waterborne diseases is that the

water was inadequately filtered. In Malaysia, it is not greater emphasis of a problem

compare to the rural areas that are still using water wells as their water resources. We

are worried that the source of water is contaminated with unwanted elements because it

is not properly filtered.

Overpopulation

An inevitable fact of life is that when more people are born, nurtured and

sustained, the more amount of water it is going to take to quench their thirst. Due to the

increasing percentage of people on Earth, it will strain our combined ecosystems ability

to provide clean water supply not just for drinking but for food, hygiene and industry. Add

in the fact that only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh water and a large portion of it are

trapped as glaciers and ice masses. The introduction of new technologies may help us

conserve what we have on Earth.

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Recommendation to future improvement

In order to improve and enhance our water quality, several improvement

procedures must be applied and implemented not only in our water treatment system but

also reduces or prohibit our human activities that threaten natural environment.

Implementation of Reverse Osmosis methods

Reverse Osmosis methods utilize a unit partitioned into two chambers by a semi-

penetrable film. One of the chambers contains "crude" water with undesirable

constituent(s) (e.g., salt). Reverse osmosis includes the use of weight to the side of the

chamber containing the "crude" water. This powers the water to leave the debased

chamber and course through the treatment film into the "treated" water chamber,

deserting the undesirable minerals, which are then flushed to the channel. The film

channels the water on an atomic scale. Reverse osmosis gives somewhat

dematerialized water. The procedure is compelling for evacuating numerous substances,

including sulphate and chloride, and it for the most part leaves the water 90 percent free

of mineral and organic foulants. Be that as it may, pre-filtration or other treatment may

be required for the framework to work legitimately. The uprooted substances are

discarded in more or less 1 to 3 gallons of water which are squandered for each 1 gallon

that is created.

Reduction in Water Pollution

Water pollution can be considered a serious problem in Malaysia as it has a

negative impact on the sustainability of water resources. Clean water availability is

reduced as the cost of treating polluted water us too high. Enforcement in form of

penalties and punishment should be enforced to make sure the irresponsible person or

community will get the appropriate punishments due to their actions.

Reduce Deforestation

In order to reduce the impact of water shortage, first we need to stop the

development around the catchment area. Besides that we should stop develop buildings

in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya and establish satellite city to disperse the crowded

population around this areas. By conserving the forests, we can consider building

additional dams in the Klang Valley area to increase the influx of water storage.

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Learning outcome

Throughout this assignment, we have learned about the importance of water

treatment for human being. First of all, we get to understand more about water treatment

in Malaysia. The main reason of water treatment is basically to purify or to clear the

impurities in the water so that it is safe to be consumed or use. There are many steps

and process need to be taken care and greatly supervised before the water is delivered

for the usage of human being. For example coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation,

filtration and disinfection are important processes. Most of the water treatment plant is

monitored 24 hours in case there is any emergency case.

Other than that, we also learned about the disadvantages and advantages of

domestic water treatment in Malaysia. We have learned the population in our country

and the number of water plants to supply water to the citizen. As the pollution of our

rivers is quite serious, this makes the water treatment process even more important.

Besides that, we also did research about water treatment of other countries like

Singapore. We found out Singapore has limited water resources but their technology is

more advanced in the way they have 3 more processes that Malaysia doesn’t have.

Those 3 processes are Microfiltration, Reverse osmosis and Ultraviolet Disinfection. By

undergoing these 3 processes, their water can be clean as drinking water.

We also get to know the hazardous compounds contain in the water. For

example viruses and bacteria which are dangerous if consumed. Nevertheless, we

learned about sources of water for rural area and urban area. The sources of water for

urban areas are mostly from river or stream and for rural areas the source of water are

from wells or rain water. Last but not least, we realized the importance of water and how

great it can influence the human being.

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References

Domestic Water Treatment for Homeowners | American Ground Water Trust. (2014).

Retrieved June 6, 2015, from http://www.agwt.org/content/domestic-water-treatment-

homeowners#WATER

Kanellos, M. (2009, November 17). Sewage to Drinking Water: Singapore Paves the

Way. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sewage-to-drinking-water-singapore-

shows-the-way

Klang Valley Water Crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2015, from

http://www.academia.edu/6580323/Klang_Valley_Water_Crisis

PUB Water Treatment. (2014, October 7). Water Treatment. Retrieved June 21, 2015,

from http://www.pub.gov.sg/general/watersupply/Pages/WaterTreatment.aspx

Sources and Causes of Water Pollution - Conserve Energy Future. (2013, April 15).

Retrieved June 13, 2015, from http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/sources-and-

causes-of-water-pollution.php

Spellman, F., & Drinan, J. (2012). Water Treatment. In The Drinking water handbook

(2nd ed.). Boca Raton, FL, New York: CRC Press.

SYED YUSOFF, S. (1993.). CASE STUDY : MALAYSIA. In WATER TREATMENT IN

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from

http://ir.uitm.edu.my/4564/1/SYED_ABDUL_FATTAH_SYED_YUSOFF_93_24.pdf

Tchobanoglous, G. (1991). Wastewater engineering: Treatment, disposal, and reuse

(3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Water Treatment for Domestic Water Supplies. (n.d.). Retrieved June 11, 2015, from

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/eng10363/$file/Module7.pdf?

OpenElement

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Appendix

Introduction- Yeoh Pooi Ching

Installation of the Water Treatment Plant- Yee Algel

Management of Water Treatment Plant- Yee Algel

The Advantages and Disadvantages- Yee Algel

Case Study- Chin Tze Wei, Yeoh Pooi Ching, Bo Yong Khong,

Possible Problem to the system- Lee Kit Hung

Recommendation to future improvement- Bo Yong Khong

Learning outcome- Hoo Bung Jiat

References

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