Rules of thumb for the relation between micropollutant property and drinking water treatment technique

This package contains data and a script to visualize calculated purification effort for single chemicals and for water as a whole. These are based on a set of data-driven rules of thumb that are derived based on the relation between micropollutant traits and treatment techniques. The rules cannot be used for an exact calculation for a particular treatment installation, only for a first estimation in general of required purification effort of the micropollutant.

The rules of thumb are combined into a single formula that favors micropollutants that can be removed by the simpler purification treatments. Averaged over all micropollutants this index can evaluate mixtures of chemicals, in terms of purification effort. As a proof of concept, the purification effort in the Rhine can be evaluated between 2000 and 2018. 

The formula with combined 'rules of thumb' can be integrated to replace the calculation of purification effort in the paper of Pronk et al. (2021) "A water quality index for the removal requirement and the purification treatment effort of micropollutants" https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2020.289. In this paper, purification effort and removal requirement are combined into a single index for water quality. To illustrate this, the script provides code to assess the water quality in colors from blue (excellent) to red (bad). This can be used to score water on the Water Framework Directive 'Required level of purification treatment'.