Performance assessment of Al-Rustumiah wastewater treatment plant using multivariate statistical technique

Abstract An attempt has been made to assess the performance of the third expansion of the Al-Rustamiya wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). This plant serves approximately 1,500,000 people in east Baghdad city, the capital of Iraq, and the increase of the population in this part of the city has reached about 4 million which led to deterioration in their effluents quality. Furthermore, the plant has no improvement on their processing units. Al-Rustamiya WWTP uses a biological water treatment method known as the activated sludge process with an average wastewater treatment of about 300 million liters. In the present paper, a wastewater quality data of ten years has been subjected to a multivariate statistical technique to identify the most important factors that affect the performance of the plant and estimating its efficiency. The data was collected and examined by the central laboratory of the Al-Rustamiya wastewater treatment plant in the mayoralty of Baghdad. Factor Analysis has been used to assess the important water quality parameters: pH, Total Suspended Solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). The results revealed that the major factor that affects the performance is the organic load of raw wastewater and the removal efficiency of the WWTP. Furthermore, the results present that the performance of the current plant system is acceptable exclude for the removal efficiency of BOD below the prescribed limit. As well as, The BOD and COD correlation can evaluate wastewater treatment plant efficiency, aid in prompt intervention, and monitor harmful substances.