Development of a risk assessment based technique for design/retrofitting of WWTPs

Up to now, within the design/retrofit of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), deterministic models were used to evaluate different scenarios on their merits in terms of effluent compliance. This paper describes an approach in which a Monte Carlo engine is coupled to a deterministic treatment plant model, followed by risk interpretation in the form of concentration-duration-frequency (cdf) curves of norm exceedance. The combination of probabilistic modelling techniques with the currently available deterministic models allows to determine the probability of exceeding the effluent limits of a WWTP. This percentage of exceedance is accompanied by confidence intervals resulting from the inherent uncertainty of influent characteristics and model parameters. The approach is illustrated for a hypothetical case study, consisting of a denitrifying plant model inspired by the benchmark model described by Spanjers et al.