Integrated Optimal Control of Urban wastewater Systems

Abstract

Sewer networks are designed to collect and transport wastewater to treatment plants. However, during wet weather periods stormwater runoff flows into these sewers and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) occur. Damage to the nearby natural waters from these CSOs is noticeable. This is because of the high pollution concentrations in CSOs. Controlling urban wastewater systems is one possible way of addressing the environmental issues from CSOs. Therefore, this research explores the development of a holistic framework that is intended to be used for the multi-objective optimization of urban wastewater systems, considering water quality in both sewers and receiving waters and the economics of wastewater treatment. Dry weather flows (DWFs) and stormwater runoff water quality compositions were considered. Temporal and spatial variations of the stormwater runoff were incorporated using pollutographs for different land-uses.