Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Development of a drinking water quality index based on a participatory procedure using mixed multicriteria methods

  • Published:
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The objective of this study is to propose and apply a novel approach to develop a drinking water quality index that enables water managers to routinely identify the vulnerabilities in a distribution system (DS) while taking into account the priorities of water managers and operators. Here, we propose an innovative approach based on the participation of eight researchers and water managers. The input from these participants was included through a combination of the Delphi and MACBETH (Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical-Based Evaluation Technique) methods, which were applied to an index developed using fuzzy logic. The index was then validated by conducting sensitivity and comparative analyses on a database from field sampling campaigns conducted in various small municipal DSs in two Canadian provinces: Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Finally, the drinking water quality index was applied to a database of the DS in Quebec City, Canada. Sensitivity and comparative analyses revealed that the developed index could allow for the characterization of water sample quality and could prove useful for prioritizing interventions in the DS. The index was also useful for representing the spatial variability of water quality, and provided nuanced information about water quality, especially when the water quality parameter values complied with guidelines and regulations. These results provide a transferable and integrated approach for developing customized drinking water quality indices. This study will help pave the way for water quality managers to better prevent episodes of possible water quality deterioration.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abbasi, T., & Abbasi, S.A. (2012) Water quality indices. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

  • Akter, T., Jhohura, F. T., Akter, F., Chowdhury, T. R., Mistry, S. K., Dey, D., et al. (2016). Water quality index for measuring drinking water quality in rural Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 35(1), 4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barua, A., Mudunuri, L. S., & Kosheleva, O. (2014). Why trapezoidal and triangular membership functions work so well: towards a theoretical explanation. Journal of Uncertain Systems, 8.

  • Böhringer, C., & Jochem, P. E. P. (2007). Measuring the immeasurable—a survey of sustainability indices. Ecological Economics, 63, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.03.008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CCME (1999) Canadian water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life: Canadian Water Quality Index 1.0 Technical Report. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Canadian environmental quality guidelines. ISBN 1-896997-34-1

  • Chang, N. B., Chen, H. W., & Ning, S. K. (2001). Identification of river water quality using the fuzzy synthetic evaluation approach. Journal of Environmental Management, 63(3), 293–305.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Costa, C. A. B. E., & Vansnick, J. C. (1999) The MACBETH approach: basic ideas, software, and an application. In Advances in decision analysis (pp. 131-157). Springer, Dordrecht.

  • Coulibaly, H. D., & Rodriguez, M. J. (2003). Spatial and temporal variation of drinking water quality in ten small Quebec utilities. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science, 2, 47–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delpla, I., Proulx, F., & Rodríguez, M. J. (2020). A methodology to prioritize spatio-temporal monitoring of drinking water quality considering population vulnerability. Journal of Environmental Management, 255, 109869.

  • Diamond, I. R., Grant, R. C., Feldman, B. M., Pencharz, P. B., Ling, S. C., Moore, A. M., & Wales, P. W. (2014). Defining consensus: a systematic review recommends methodologic criteria for reporting of Delphi studies. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 67(4), 401–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Francisque, A., Rodriguez, M. J., Sadiq, R., Miranda, L. F., & Proulx, F. (2009). Prioritizing monitoring locations in a water distribution network: a fuzzy risk approach. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology-AQUA, 58(7), 488–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gouvernement du Québec (2018) Regulation on the quality of drinking water Règlement sur la qualité de l’eau potable. Gazette Officielle du Québec.

  • Gouvernement du Québec, (2001). Regulation on the quality of drinking water (Règlement sur la qualité de l’eau potable). Government of Québec, Québec, Canada L.R.Q, c. Q-2, r. 18.1.1.

  • Health Canada, (1995). Guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality: guideline technical document–temperature

  • Health Canada. (2017). Guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality—summary table. Water and Air Quality Bureau. Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario: Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horton, R. (1965). An index number system for rating water quality. Journal - Water Pollution Control Federation, 37(3), 300–306.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurley, T., Sadiq, R., & Mazumder, A. (2012). Adaptation and evaluation of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) for use as an effective tool to characterize drinking source water quality. Water Research, 46(11), 3544–3552.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kallidaikurichi, S., & Rao, B. (2010). Index of drinking water adequacy for the Asian economies. Water Policy, 12(S1), 135–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lavoie, R., Deslandes, J., & Proulx, F. (2016). Assessing the ecological value of wetlands using the MACBETH approach in Québec City. Journal for Nature Conservation, 30, 67–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Legay, C., Rodriguez, M. J., Sérodes, J. B., & Levallois, P. (2010). The assessment of population exposure to chlorination by-products: a study on the influence of the water distribution system. Environmental Health, 9(1), 59.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Linstone, H.A., & Turoff, M. (Ed.). (1977) The Delphi method: techniques and applications. Addison-Wesley.

  • Lu, R.-S., Lo, S.-L., & Hu, J.-Y. (1999). Analysis of reservoir water quality using fuzzy synthetic evaluation. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 13, 327–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Misaghi, F., Delgosha, F., Razzaghmanesh, M., & Myers, B. (2017). Introducing a water quality index for assessing water for irrigation purposes: a case study of the Ghezel Ozan River. Science of the Total Environment, 589, 107–116.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mohebbi, M. R., Saeedi, R., Montazeri, A., Vaghefi, K. A., Labbafi, S., Oktaie, S., et al. (2013). Assessment of water quality in groundwater resources of Iran using a modified drinking water quality index (DWQI). Ecological Indicators, 30, 28–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.02.008.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mukate, S., Wagh, V., Panaskar, D., Jacobs, J. A., & Sawant, A. (2019). Development of new integrated water quality index (IWQI) model to evaluate the drinking suitability of water. Ecological Indicators, 101, 348–354.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Musa, H. D., Yacob, M. R., Abdullah, A. M., & Ishak, M. Y. (2015). Delphi method of developing environmental well-being indicators for the evaluation of urban sustainability in Malaysia. Procedia Environmental Sciences, 30, 244–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2015.10.044.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (2008). Handbook on constructing composite indicators: methodology and user guide. France: OECD.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ott, W. (1978) Water quality indices: a survey of indices used in the United States. USEPA, ETA-60074-78-005.

  • Ouyang, Y., Nkedi-Kizza, P., Wu, Q. T., Shinde, D., & Huang, C. H. (2006). Assessment of seasonal variations in surface water quality. Water Research, 40(20), 3800–3810.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ozdemir, O. N., & Buyruk, T. (2018). Effect of travel time and temperature on chlorine bulk decay in water supply pipes. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 144(3), 04018002. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rochette, S., Pelletier, G., Bouchard, C., & Rodriguez, M. (2017). Variability of water residence time and free chlorine and disinfection by-product concentrations within a residential neighborhood. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology-AQUA, 66(4), 219–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrigues, T. C. (2014). The MACBETH approach to health value measurement: building a population health index in group processes. Procedia Technology, 16, 1361–1366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodriguez, M. J., Sérodes, J., Levallois, P., & Proulx, F. (2007). Chlorinated disinfection by-products in drinking water according to source, treatment, season and distribution location. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science, 6, 355–365.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sadiq, R., & Rodriguez, M. J. (2004). Disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water and predictive models for their occurrence: a review. Science of the Total Environment, 321(1-3), 21–46.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Scheili, A., Rodriguez, M. J., & Sadiq, R. (2015a). Development, application, and sensitivity analysis of a water quality index for drinking water management in small systems. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 187, 685–700.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Scheili, A., Rodriguez, M. J., & Sadiq, R. (2015b). Seasonal and spatial variations of source and drinking water quality in small municipal systems of two Canadian regions. Science of the Total Environment, 508, 514–524.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shankar, B. S., & Raman, S. (2019). A novel approach for the formulation of modified water quality index and its application for groundwater quality appraisal and grading (pp. 1–12). Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal.

    Google Scholar 

  • SPSS Inc. Released. (2004). SPSS for Windows, Version 13.0. Chicago, SPSS Inc. 2004.

  • Statistics Canada. (2017). Québec, V [Census subdivision], Quebec and Québec, TÉ [Census division], Quebec (table). Census Profile. 2016 Census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-316-X2016001. Ottawa. Released November 29, 2017. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E. Accessed 1 Aug 2020.

  • Sutadian, A. D., Muttil, N., Yilmaz, A. G., & Perera, B. J. C. (2017). Using the analytic hierarchy process to identify parameter weights for developing a water quality index. Ecological Indicators, 75, 220–233.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Turoff, M. (Ed.). (1977) The Delphi method: techniques and applications. Addison-Wesley.

  • USEPA, 2001. National primary drinking water standards. United States Environmental Protection Agency, document #EPA 816-F-01-007.

  • USEPA (2018) 2018 edition of the drinking water standards and health advisories tables. Office of Water, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.

  • Ville de Québec (2020) Bilan annuel de la qualité de l’eau potable pour la période de 1er janvier au 31 décembre 2019

  • Wepener, V., Van Vuren, J. H. J., Du Preez, H. H., & Kohler, A. (1992). The development of an aquatic toxicity index as a tool in the operational management of water quality in the Olifants River (Kruger National Park). Koedoe, 35(2), 1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, Z., Wang, X., Chen, Y., Cai, Y., & Deng, J. (2018). Assessing river water quality using water quality index in Lake Taihu Basin, China. Science of the Total Environment, 612, 914–922.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yan, W., Li, J., & Bai, X. (2016). Comprehensive assessment and visualized monitoring of urban drinking water quality. Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, 155, 26–35.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zadeh, L. A. (1988). Fuzzy logic. Computer, 21(4), 83–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zardari, N. H., Ahmed, K., Shirazi, S. M., & Yusop, Z. B. (2015). Weighting methods and their effects on multi-criteria decision making model outcomes in water resources management. Springer Briefs in Water Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12586-2.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the City of Quebec for providing water quality data. We are especially grateful to the panellists that agreed to participate in this study.

Funding

This study received funding from the National Research Council of Canada.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. WaterShed Monitoring, 686 Grande-Allée Est, 3e étage, Québec, Québec, G1R 2K5, Canada

    Anna Scheili

  2. École supérieure d’aménagement du territoire et de développement régional (ESAD), Université Laval, Pavillon F-A. Savard, 2325, rue des Bibliothèques, local 1612, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Anna Scheili, Ianis Delpla & Manuel J. Rodriguez

Authors
  1. Anna Scheili
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ianis Delpla
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Manuel J. Rodriguez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Scheili.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 21 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Scheili, A., Delpla, I. & Rodriguez, M.J. Development of a drinking water quality index based on a participatory procedure using mixed multicriteria methods. Environ Monit Assess 192, 558 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08516-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08516-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation