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Source to Tap Risk Assessment for Intermittent Water Supply Systems in Arid Regions: An Integrated FTA—Fuzzy FMEA Methodology

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Abstract

Water utilities in arid regions deal with multifaceted issues of natural groundwater contamination, high treatment costs, and low water rates. These utilities rely on intermittent supplies resulting in numerous water quality failures at source, treatment, distribution, and in-house plumbing systems. The present research presents an inclusive risk assessment methodology for managing water quality from source to tap. Three-year monitoring data for turbidity, TDS, pH, iron, ammonia, nitrates, residual chlorine, Coliform group, E. coli, and Fecal Streptococci identified the root causes of failures. The cause-effect relationships in the form of a fault tree were solved using multiple failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) to handle both the Boolean operations. The fuzzy sets addressed the uncertainties associated with data limitations in calculating exceedance probabilities (Pe) and vagueness in expert opinion for subjective evaluation of severity and detectability. The methodology was applied on a smaller system serving 18,000 consumers in Qassim, Saudi Arabia. Potable supplied water underwent reoccurrence of TDS (Pe = 20%), turbidity (Pe = 10%), and Fe (Pe = 2%) failures in distribution that further increased up to 44%, 33%, and 11% at the consumer end. The Pe for residual chlorine failure soared up to 89%. Economic controls reduced the cumulative risk to 50%, while the shift to continuous supply can limit the remaining failures under the acceptable risk. The framework will help utilities manage water quality in intermittent systems from source to tap in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, and elsewhere.

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Data Availability

A part of the dataset analyzed during the current study is available in Appendix A and Appendix B of the Supplementary material. Detailed data cannot be shared due to the confidentiality contract between the data sharing and research organizations.

Abbreviations

DWQS:

Drinking Water Quality Standards

FMEA:

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis

FTA:

Fault tree Analysis

FY:

Fiscal Year

IWS:

Intermittent Water Supply

RCA:

Root Cause Analysis

SAS:

Saudi Arabia Standards

TDS:

Total Dissolved Solids

WHO:

World Health Organization

WQF:

Water Quality Failure

WQP:

Water Quality Parameter

WSP:

Water Safety Plan

WSS:

Water Supply System

WTP:

Water Treatment Plant

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Acknowledgements

Authors highly acknowledge the municipalities in Qassim Region of Saudi Arabia for sharing their data, laboratory facilities, and professional experience.

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge Qassim University represented by Deanship of Scientific Research on the material support for this research under the number (3861-qec-2018-1-14-S) during the academic year 1440-41 AH/ 2018-19 AD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Qassim University, Buraydah, Qassim, 51452, Saudi Arabia

    Husnain Haider, M. D. Shafiquzzaman, Mohammad Alresheedi, Saleem S. AlSaleem & Abdul Razzaq Ghumman

  2. Graduate student, Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Qassim University, Buraydah, Qassim, 51452, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammed Hammed Alkhowaiter

  3. Real Estate Development Fund, AlRass Brach, AlRass, Qassim, 52719, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammed Hammed Alkhowaiter

Authors
  1. Husnain Haider
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  2. Mohammed Hammed Alkhowaiter
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  3. M. D. Shafiquzzaman
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  4. Mohammad Alresheedi
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  5. Saleem S. AlSaleem
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  6. Abdul Razzaq Ghumman
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Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, analysis, and paper writing was done by HH. Data collection, laboratory analysis, and data analysis were conducted by MA. MS and MT assisted in laboratory analysis and paper proofreading. SA and AG were involved in coordination with municipalities, conceptualization and paper proofreading.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Husnain Haider.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the applicable ethical standards of Saudi Arabia.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Haider, H., Alkhowaiter, M.H., Shafiquzzaman, M.D. et al. Source to Tap Risk Assessment for Intermittent Water Supply Systems in Arid Regions: An Integrated FTA—Fuzzy FMEA Methodology. Environmental Management 67, 324–341 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01400-7

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