Enhancement of water treatment sustainability through dynamic visualisation & modelling

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) proscribes specific levels of contaminates present in rivers and lakes in the UK, these contaminants come from a wide range of sources such as food additives present in faeces, agricultural runoff and drinking water additives such as iron dosing. Water companies must provide effective treatment methods which will reduce contaminates in the water to allowed levels. The selection of effective treatment method poses a sustainability problem as there are a number of economic and social aspects which must be balanced with the environmental standards. This choice becomes more complex as all of the stakeholders involved, the companies, the local government, local industry and the general public must be engaged in the decision making process if they are to fully support whatever solution is chosen. This paper describes a sustainability assessment and visualisation toolkit, PhiZ, which has been designed to allow the assessment and communication of the relative sustainability of Phosphate management scenarios. The PhiZ system takes the approach of combining a number of computational models covering the economic, social and environmental aspects of the scenarios with a unique visualisation based on 3D rendering technology through which the results of the models can be communicated.