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EFFECT OF INTERMITTENT WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM IN WATER

DISTRIBUTION NETWORK IN RAJSHAHI CITY, BANGLADESH

Conference Paper · December 2018

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 4th International Conference on Advances in Civil Engineering 2018 (ICACE 2018)
19 –21 December 2018
CUET, Chittagong, Bangladesh
www.cuet.ac.bd

EFFECT OF INTERMITTENT WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM IN WATER

DISTRIBUTION NETWORK IN RAJSHAHI CITY, BANGLADESH

S.Akter*, A.Hasnat& M. M. Hasan

Department of Civil Engineering, Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, Rajshahi,

Bangladesh.
E-mail:polyce67@gmail.com*; arif140092@gmail.com;mehedi140065@gmail.com

*Corresponding Author

ABSTRACT
Keeping quality controlled in an intermittent stage of a water supply chain is a challenge for developing
countries like Bangladesh. So it is an imperative issue to check the water quality at different interval of
a day. This paper is redacted to investigate the degree of fluctuation of water quality and the state of
water distribution network (WDN) during intermittent water supply (IWS) period in Rajshahi city. Two
different times of a day were selected named starting hour (SH) and running hour (RH) for water quality
justification that are supplied from Rajshahi WASA. Four samples were assorted in both cases of
WASA and their residential consumers for these selected hours. A total of forty samples were
accumulated from ten wards for 5 physiochemical quality of water. Physical parameters including
turbidity, pH, odor and chemical parameter iron were performed by a standard laboratory test. The
results illustrate that piped water supply during the morning or first flush after completion of a long
interval, quality deviates from their standard forms (WHO and BDS) tremendously in this time interval.
Then the same water from the same location but for the different time was examined when the water
supply was running fully named running hour (RH). Water quality for these two different times exhibits
a dramatical distinction. A comparatively lower concentration of iron, turbidity, conductivity, and odor
were found during the running hour. But pH in both two cases was approximately the same. People
endure a lot due to this problem and even they tolerate reddish and black water after just opening the
tap in a day after a long interval of supply in a day.

Keywords: intermittent water supply; starting hour; running hour; WHO

INTRODUCTION
With the booming rate of increase of population, water use is also increasing twice comparing with the
population growth in the last century. This rate becomes hilarious in developing countries. Around 780
million people of the world do not have access to clean drinking water and 2.5 billion people do not
have proper sanitation. As a result, 6-8 million people die each year due to water-related diseases and
disasters (UN water quality, 2013). Nowadays Clean drinking water is recognized as a fundamental
human right of human being. And providing safe and clean drinking water has added an extra feature
of a challenge with this. Therefore water quality control is becoming top priority policy agenda of many
countries (WHO guideline, 2011). As water is one of the most significant ingredients on earth and
human physiology and man’s continued existence depends very much on its availability so providing
safe and reliable water supply has created a headache for the producers in the developing countries.
Bangladesh is such a developing country and Rajshahi is the fourth largest city of it. To
overcome the extreme water crisis in Rajshahi, ‘Rajshahi WASA’ was established in 2013. From then

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it provides water to the households of the city. But the nature of water provided by WASA was poor in
both physical and chemical aspects. Different types of complains were developed day by day from
consumers for that water. And unfortunately, there have not much research works done in this issue. K.
Roy et al (2018) has done some works on it but for a few wards. And S. Akter et al (2018) has done
with a small number of parameters of some other wards.
But in practical cases, it is found that the water quality varies much at starting hour of the pump
with the running hour. Rajshahi WASA supplies water twice a day at 6 AM and 3 PM respectively. The
quality of water supplied in this intermittent time shows huge variations in this two starting time of the
pump with the running time that means after the first flush hour. Though the pH almost remains the
same the other parameters change a lot in the meantime. Even the color and odor also have changed.
Bambos Charalambous described different effects of this intermittent water supply on water distribution
network. To develop the distribution system for quality ensure Fernando Alvarruiz (2016) has proposed
some measures. Ze-hua Liu et al (2016) showed how plastic pipe distribution system is changing the
quality intermittently. In this paper, we have studied some physical and chemical quality of water of 10
wards of Rajshahi city with 40 samples collecting from both WASA and consumer at starting and
running hour of the pump. The locations are selected considering the place where the intermittent water
quality deviates more from the standard values.

METHODOLOGY
Study location and data collection: Rajshahi city-corporation is located in the north-west part of
Bangladesh. It is the 4th largest city of Bangladesh. Geologically it’s position is at 24021/ and 24026/
north latitudes and between 88028/ and 88037/ east longitudes. The total area of it is 47.78 sq km. In
opposition with 449756 population, the daily water demand is 9.76 million liters. Where WASA
supplies 7.16 million liters which covers 319327 peoples demand daily. The total subscriber of Rajshahi
WASA is 40540 (the Year 2017-18). It supplies water through 632.50 km pipeline network (Rajshahi
WASA, 2018). The study location and total methodology of research have been shown in Fig. 01 & 02
respectively.

Fig. 1: Study area of the research work (Made by Author)

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 •Observation of water quality of Rajshahi WASA through practical condition and from
different research works.
•Selection of study points based on degree of deviation of intermittent water quality from
01 source to consumer.

•Sample collection from WASA and consumer at starting hour and running hour twice a
day.
02 •Lab analysis.

•Problem findings
•Result and Discussions.
03

Fig.2: Flowchart of research methodology.

Out of 30 wards, top 10 wards are selected for research which shows more declination of water quality
from source to consumer. At starting hour, source samples are collected exactly from the pump and the
consumer samples are from neighboring consumers 100-200 m from the source (Tania M. Alarcon
Falconi et al, 2016). And the samples of running hour are collected in the same procedure. Thus a total
of 40 samples were collected for this research work. All the samples were collected in 1-liter
polyethylene (PE) bottles preheated by washing with dilute HCl and later rinsed with distilled water
(Etim et al., 2013) and then carried in public health lab of RUET safely.

RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS

This work has been conducted with some physical and chemical parameters. Turbidity, pH,
conductivity, and odor are physical parameters and Iron concentration is the chemical parameter used
in this paper.
pH value
pH value indicates the acidity or alkalinity of the water (Guettaf, Maoui, & Ihdene, 2014). In the case
of Rajshahi WASA, the pH value remains almost the same at source and consumer both in starting hour
and running hour. And it stays within the standard limit of BDS (6.5 – 8.5) and WHO (6.5-8.5).

7.4
7.2
7
pH value

6.8
6.6
6.4
6.2
6
3 7 11 12 13 14 21 22 25 27
Ward No.

SH (WASA) SH (consumer) RH (WASA) RH (consumer)

Figure 03: Showing pH value with respect to the ward in 4 different condition.

Turbidity
Turbidity alludes the existence of suspended material such as clay, silt, finely divided organic material,
and other inorganic material. Higher turbidity may generate possible bacterial contamination (Rajon &

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Bari, 2014). According to WHO & BDS guideline, the allowable turbidity for drinking water are 5 NTU
and 10 NTU respectively. Kashiadanga pump (Ward 03) contains a high amount of turbidity at the
running hour. Mahisbathan pump is now remain stopped after our complaining for producing a high
amount of silt, clay, and stone in water. And Pathanpara pump is producing high turbid water at starting
hour but it becomes clean in running hour. In general, it is found that water becomes turbid gradually
from source to consumer.

SH (WASA) SH (consumer) RH (WASA) RH (consumer)

25
Turbidity (NTU)

20
15
10
5
0
3 7 11 12 13 14 21 22 25 27
Ward No.

Fig. 4: Variation of turbidity value in wards in 4 different conditions.

Conductivity
Conductivity is a measure of water’s capability to pass electrical flow. This ability is directly related to
the concentration of ions in the water. These conductive ions come from dissolved salts and inorganic
materials such as alkalis, chlorides, sulfides, and carbonate compounds. In the case of Rajshahi WASA,
the conductivity of water remains the same in all conditions.

SH (WASA) SH (consumer) RH (WASA) RH (consumer)

Conductivity (mhos/cm)

2000

1500

1000

500

0
3 7 11 12 13 14 21 22 25 27
Ward No.

Fig. 5: Showing conductivity with respect to every ward in 4 different conditions.

Odor
An unwanted odor coming from drinking water is often the sign of bigger issues plaguing the tap or
pipes. Often this smell does not signify the presence of a harmful contaminant, but it could indicate that
the drinking water is not the cleanest and should be inspected to be restored to its purest state. The water
produced by Rajshahi WASA is almost odor free. Some samples collected from the consumer at starting
time feels a bit odorous, but it’s not much.

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Iron concentration
Iron is one of the most important element of blood in human and another living creature. Iron is an
essential need for human nutrition and metabolism. But in excess quantities results in toxic effect like
hemochromatosis in tissues (Sagar et al., 2015). Iron enters drinking water supplies from natural
deposits in the earth or from agricultural and industrial practice (Fahmida et al., 2013). Our Research
said that the iron concentration is more at the starting hour. And it increases at consumers place than
the source.

SH (WASA) SH (consumer) RH (WASA) RH (consumer)

7
6
5
Iron (mg/l)

4
3
2
1
0
3 7 11 12 13 14 21 22 25 27
SH (WASA) 0.1 0.2 2 4.5 3 2 0.5 0 6.5 3
SH (consumer) 0.3 2.5 3.4 5 3 4.5 1.6 0 6.6 3
RH (WASA) 2 2 1.5 3 3 2 0.9 0 3 3
RH (consumer) 3.4 2 2.5 3.5 3 3.5 0 0 3.3 3
Ward No.

Fig.6: Variation of iron concentration at different wards in different times

Table 01: Comparison of water quality between sources and consumers.

Parameter Max. Deviation (SH) Max. Deviation (RH)
pH 9.21% 7.07%
Turbidity 38.76% 26.88%
Conductivity 47.36% 44.46%
Iron 92% 42%
Odor 20% 05%

CONCLUSION
Research has revealed that pH and conductivity value increases gradually from source to consumer in
both starting hour and running hour. That means the acidity or alkalinity or ion concentration increases
through the pipeline. Again water becomes turbid in consumers stage. Iron concentration also increases
dramatically at consumers place. In every cases starting hour gives more shabby water than running
hour. And the water quality decreases gradually from source to consumers. Different materials annexed
in steel pipes cause this deterioration. So Rajshahi WASA should take proper steps at the source to
flourish their water supply quality and trace the pipelines where a specific parameter deviates more in
meeting up with design requisites. In those regards, this paper may aid them a lot.

REFERENCES
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