Evaluation of Nitrate Treatment Methods Under Uncertainty

C. C. Tannehill
M. F. Dahab
W. E. Woldt
I. Bogardi

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DOI: 10.2190/GT8H-WH0E-JNP8-VF1N

Abstract

Many small towns in the United States currently are faced with high nitrate levels in their drinking water and limited resources to address this issue. There are many methods of removing nitrate from drinking water with varying degrees of cost and system performance. In this study, the cost-effectiveness of the following nitrate removal options are compared for each of six small Nebraska towns: reverse osmosis, ion exchange (standard and nitrate selective resins), biological denitrification, and ion exchange with biological denitrification of the recycled brine. A multiple-criteria ranking procedure, fuzzy composite programming, was us'ed to determine which treatment method would remove the most nitrate for the least cost. the fuzzy methodology accounts for uncertainty in input data by allowing a range of values to be entered. the program then uses fuzzy distance measures to rank the different management options based on the output data. the technique is flexible because the preference of the decision maker can be incorporated into the analysis. Given the preferences that were highlighted in this research, the best treatment option for five out of six of these towns was ion exchange with a nitrate-selective resin and the worst treatment option for all six towns was reverse osmosis. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was done to determine how the results might change if selected preferences were modified.

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