Good question — and one ...

Good question — and one where the practical difference shows up quickly on real projects.

Conventional filtration is single- or dual-media gravity filtration (sand/anthracite) after coagulation and settling. Its usual duty is bringing TSS down to roughly 5–10 mg/L for potable polishing or tertiary wastewater treatment.

Enhanced filtration covers configurations that push beyond that baseline: coagulation-assisted (in-line/contact) filtration for high seasonal turbidity spikes in river intakes; multi-layer beds (anthracite/sand/GAC); higher-rate pressure filters for retrofit projects with limited civil footprint; and membrane (MF/UF) trains where low turbidity/SDI must protect downstream processes.

Where each fits better, from practice:

Conventional: stable-surface-water potable plants, and tertiary polishing after biological wastewater treatment.
Enhanced: river intakes with turbidity swings, water reuse trains, and any scheme feeding sensitive downstream units.

One coupling worth flagging for wastewater works: if the plant uses UV disinfection, filtration performance directly determines UV efficiency — transmittance (UVT) and suspended solids decide whether the UV dose actually reaches the target organisms. On municipal open-channel UV projects we have supplied (3,500–35,000 m3/d range), upstream particle removal is often the difference between meeting and missing the dose target: https://www.konchewater.com/cases/open-channel-uv-municipal-wastewater-china

If you share the raw water source and target parameters for your application, the conventional-vs-enhanced choice narrows down quickly.