ABSTRACT
Turbidity is often recognized to be an important indicator of water quality in many water treatment units. In fact, models of certain treatment units have used this parameter to simulate the system performance. It is true that when the turbidity levels reduce in any treatment step, other water quality parameters may also show a sign of improvement. However, it may not be necessary that a stream with the higher turbidity loads may pose necessarily a higher level of other quality parameters. The study regarding the variation of water quality parameters with the stream water turbidity is thus crucial for design and operation of water treatment works. Based on the analysis of data spanning nearly two and half years in a river located in the southern part of Germany, it is found that there is rather a decrease in the concentration of most of the water quality indicators with an increase in the stream water turbidity. In other words, the raw water containing less turbidity is found to contain relatively higher levels of other indicators. This aspect of water quality variation must be considered in any water treatment scheme to achieve desirable water quality levels after treatment.
