Spatiotemporal assessment of water quality in the distribution network of City of Sharjah, UAE

Maintaining a healthy water distribution network (WDN) is key to providing good quality services to the consumers in a sustainable manner. WDN in the City of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), has more than 3,000 km of pipeline and receives water from different sources. Understanding the variation of water quality over time is critical to appropriate management. The objective of this paper was to assess the variability of the water quality in Sharjah WDN. Monitoring data for residual chlorine, iron, and fluoride were collected from 46 different locations throughout the distribution system. Graphical and GIS-based analyses were conducted to understand the temporal (for three source waters and three locations in the WDN) and spatial variability (all locations) of water quality throughout the distribution network. Temporal variations indicated seasonal water quality variations throughout the three-year period (2012-2014). The spatial variability indicated that the old part of the city was susceptible to water quality degradation.