Deltares Software to Improve River Water Quality

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Deltares Software to Improve River Water Quality

Deltares Will Provide a Range of Software Tools for the Restoration of Water Quality to Water Management Authority of Buyuk Menderes River

Deltares is to help the Turkish government to improve water quality in the catchment of the Buyuk Menderes River. The Buyuk Menderes, which is in the southwest of Turkey, has many problems with water quality because of the numerous dams, engineering structures, agriculture and industry. Deltares will provide a range of software tools for the restoration of water quality and monitor their use by the water management authority. The tools provide a picture of the problems and work out which measures are most effective.

Striking a balance between costs and effect

The tools being used are the WFD Explorer, which targets water quality, and Ribasim, a software program that looks at water quantities and distribution. Joost van den Roovaart is working on the project for Deltares: ‘The WFD Explorer shows the effect of particular measures on water quality and the associated costs. In that way, the water authority can strike the right balance between the effectiveness and the cost of an intervention, avoiding expensive measures that produce only marginal improvements in water quality.'

WFD Explorer goes international

The WFD Explorer was originally developed for Dutch water authorities to decide which steps they can take to comply with the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive. Joost van den Roovaart: ‘But the tool can be used in any country that wants to determine the impact of a particular intervention on water quality and whether an investment is worth making. For example, Deltares recently developed a WFD Explorer application for New Zealand as well.'

Water quantity is equally important

Deltares is supplying the Ribasim program as well as the WFD Explorer. Ribasim quantifies water availability for the river. ‘To determine how effective measures are, you need a sound understanding of the Buyuk Menderes water system. How much water is available, and where, and how fast does the water flow in particular places? Where flow rates are low, polluted water is simply removed slower than when rates are high.'

Knowledge transfer to Turkish water authority

The project will continue until late 2015. By that time, all the tools will be performing optimally and the staff at the Turkish water authority will have been trained to work with them. The completion of the project will include a road show so that the tools can be used in other catchments in Turkey.

Source: Deltares

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