The research deals with a 2-year study carried out at the water work of Ferrara (Po Valley, Italy), aiming to enhance the quantity of water withdrawn for drinking purposes by means of river bank filtration (RBK) from the Po River. The current drinking water plant (27 106 m3/year) is fed with the surface water of Po River (for the 80 %) and with the groundwater withdrawn by alluvional wells (for the remaining 20 %). Treatments consist of grit removal, lagooning, coagulation-flocculation-sedimentation, ozonation, sand filtration (only for surface water), activated carbon, disinfection by chlorine (for the mixture of treated surface water and groundwater). Withdrawn surface water requires all these treatments as Ferrara water work is placed at the end (50 km far from the discharge into the Adriatic Sea) of the long course of the river (652 km), downstream the discharges of developed urban and industrial areas of the Northern Italy as well as wide rural ones of the Po Valley. Recent investigations on the surface water of Po River and in some of its affluents have documented the occurrence of a great number of persistent organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, as well as heavy metals, questioning if adopted water treatments are adequate to guarantee a good and safety quality of the drinking water produced from surface water. The debate has increased after the oil spill in an affluent of Po River occurred in February 2010 that required a continuous (expensive) monitoring of the quality of the surface water of the Po river in many points along its course for many weeks after the accident to evaluate the possibility to withdraw it for drinking purposes. Finally, the frequent drought events happened in the last 10 years in the Po Valley have induced a severe control of the water amount withdrawn for the different needs and in some circumstances, the direct withdrawal from surface water was difficult due to the lowering of the Po level.

Riverbank filtration for drinking water supply in the Po Valley (Italy)

VERLICCHI, Paola;
2013

Abstract

The research deals with a 2-year study carried out at the water work of Ferrara (Po Valley, Italy), aiming to enhance the quantity of water withdrawn for drinking purposes by means of river bank filtration (RBK) from the Po River. The current drinking water plant (27 106 m3/year) is fed with the surface water of Po River (for the 80 %) and with the groundwater withdrawn by alluvional wells (for the remaining 20 %). Treatments consist of grit removal, lagooning, coagulation-flocculation-sedimentation, ozonation, sand filtration (only for surface water), activated carbon, disinfection by chlorine (for the mixture of treated surface water and groundwater). Withdrawn surface water requires all these treatments as Ferrara water work is placed at the end (50 km far from the discharge into the Adriatic Sea) of the long course of the river (652 km), downstream the discharges of developed urban and industrial areas of the Northern Italy as well as wide rural ones of the Po Valley. Recent investigations on the surface water of Po River and in some of its affluents have documented the occurrence of a great number of persistent organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, as well as heavy metals, questioning if adopted water treatments are adequate to guarantee a good and safety quality of the drinking water produced from surface water. The debate has increased after the oil spill in an affluent of Po River occurred in February 2010 that required a continuous (expensive) monitoring of the quality of the surface water of the Po river in many points along its course for many weeks after the accident to evaluate the possibility to withdraw it for drinking purposes. Finally, the frequent drought events happened in the last 10 years in the Po Valley have induced a severe control of the water amount withdrawn for the different needs and in some circumstances, the direct withdrawal from surface water was difficult due to the lowering of the Po level.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/2005212
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