CEEB 223

INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
Name: Mr. NAZIRUL MUBIN BIN ZAHARI

Email: nazirul@uniten.edu.my
BN-03-034

013 - 6262 077

COURSE CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Environmental Engineering

CHAPTER 2: Basic water chemistry and microbiology
CHAPTER 3: Climate Change (Dr. Chua)
CHAPTER 4: Material Balances (Dr. Chua)
CHAPTER 5: Water treatment (Dr. Chua)
CHAPTER 6: Wastewater Treatment (Dr. Chua)
CHAPTER 7: Municipal solid waste management
CHAPTER 8: Hazardous waste Management
CHAPTER 9: Air and Noise Pollution Control.

SUB TOPIC IN CHAPTER 1

Definition
Environmental Engineering Impacts
Water Quality, Standards and monitoring
Water Treatment
Wastewater treatment
Air Pollution and Noise Pollution
Environmental ethics,
Government Policy, plan and Acts related to environment

Sultan Abu Bakar Dam, Malaysia

Maan Dam, Taiwan

Mingtian Dam,Taiwan

Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan

CHAPTER 1
What is Environmental

Engineering?

According to American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE:

Environmental engineering is manifested by sound/good engineering thought and practice in

the solution of problems of environmental sanitation, notably

1. in the provision of safe, palatable and ample public water supplies;

2. the proper disposal of or recycle of wastewater and solid wastes
3. the adequate drainage of urban and rural areas for proper sanitation
4. the control of water, soil, and atmospheric pollution and the environmental impacts of
these solutions.

Environmental system overview

Balance environmental system
able to maintain the ecosystem
by itself
Depending on each others

Effect of
pesticides on our
ecosystem

Effects of organic
matter in flowing
river

Human
influence on
ecosystem

Effects of nutrients
on a lake system

Effects of our
development on our
ecosystem

SOURCE OF WATER POLLUTANT

Point source such as wastewater discharge points, factory, main drainage from residential area
Non-point source such as polluted surface runoff from farming areas

Pathogens

Oxygendemanding waste

Nutrients

Thermal Pollution

Heavy Metals

Pesticides

Volatile Organic
Chemicals (VOC)

Emerging
Contaminants

WATER POLLUTANTS

WATER QUALITY
It is very subjective to describe a water sample to be clean or good without any

measurable quality.
The quality of a water sample can be described in measurable parameters. Water define
as H2O plus whatever inside that liquid.
treated water from a water treatment plant - drinking water.
The dirty water or used water from residential areas or industries are known as sewage i.e
either domestic sewage or industrial sewage.
The treated sewage/treated wastewater is commonly referred as treated effluent.
The quality of these waters can be described as in term of measured parameters.

Why it is important to monitor water quality?

Check to ensure safe for human consumption/
River or lake water
A. To detect any abnormality in the water quality
B. To detect any contamination - so that treatment can be provided immediately
C. To collect data for record purposes study the trend of quality of that river
D. To maintain the living ecology of that river/lake
E. Use raw water as the source of water treatment plant

WATER QUALITY PARAMETERS

pH - using pH meter
colour (CU or HU)- by comparison method or
spectrophotometer method,

Turbidity (NTU) - using turbiditimeter.

total organic carbon (mg/l) - TOC analyser
solids concentration (mg/l) - filtration, drying
and ignition

ammonia, phosphate concentration

temperature
dissolved oxygen concentration

organic content BOD, COD

measurements
hardness (mg/l as CaCO3 ) - titration
method
alkalinity (mg/l) - titration method
iron, manganese, and other metal
concentration (mg/l) - electrodes or titration
ammonia and phosphorous (mg/l) titration method
Microbiology concentration (numbers per
volume) - absent/present, membrane
filtration method.

Color Measurement
The colour exhibit by 1 mg/l of platinum cobalt solution is known as 1 colour unit or
Hazen unit.

The colour that matches the standard solution concentration is the colour of the
sample. This is known as comparing method.

Recently, we can use a colour disk to compare the colour. Comparison method is subjected
to ones eye sight, hence it is very subjective. (LOVIBOND)

Latest method is to use spectrophotometer to measure the colour.

There are two types of colour measurements: true colour which is due to dissolved solids
[after filtration] and apparent colour which is colour of water before filtration.

Turbidity
Turbidity measurement is a measure of
suspended solids in water.

The standard unit for turbidity is NTU

or nepheolometric turbidity unit.

The measurement can be carried out in

a portable turbiditimeter or benchtop
turbiditimeter

pH and Temperature Measurement

pH measurement can be carried
out using a pH meter which
incorporates a pH probes.

High temperature water [> 40 o

C] is considered as
contaminant.

Dissolved oxygen (DO)

concentration
Dissolved oxygen or DO is a measurement of
concentration of DO in the water.

A good quality water should have sufficient DO to

maintain the livelihood of the ecosystem in the
water.

measurement is using DO meter.

The standard unit is mg/l.
The amount of DO oxygen in water is affected by
temperature, pressure and dissolved solids.

Ammonia and nitrogen (NO3)

presence of ammonia indicates wastewater contamination.
Total Kjeldahl nitrogen or TKN is a measure of the total organic and ammonia
nitrogen in wastewater.

Ammonia when oxidized will eventually convert into nitrate NO3 through a process
known as nitrification.

NO3 is a nutrient for plant; hence an excess NO3 will encourage algae bloom.
It can be measured using reagents and spectrophotometer.

Phosphorous
Phosphorous is another common element found in wastewater and it may
appear in many forms: orthophosphate, polyphosphate and organic phosphate.
We term them as Total phosphorus.

Excessive Phosphorus - Eutrophication

Heavy Metals
Dissolved metals such as iron,

manganese, magnesium,
calcium, potassium, sodium

expressed as mg/l.
The measurement of these

metals can be done through

probes and
spectrophotometer.

Microbiology
Testing of pathogenic bacteria is difficult to perform and not
quantitatively reproducible.

The microbiological quality of water is based on testing for

non-pathogenic indicator organism, principally the coliform
group.

E. coli is the most common bacteria presence in human/warm

animal stomach and excreted in large numbers.

Solids concentration
It is a measure of solid presence in a water sample.
The categories of solids in a water sample can be divided into suspended
and dissolved by filtration process.

The portion that can be ignited at 550oC is referred as volatile solids.

Calculations

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),

chemical oxygen demand (COD)
It is standard test that used to measure the organic
content of a sample.

The standard temperature is 20oC and incubated for 5

days, hence BOD5,.

Chemical oxygen demand, COD is a measure of all

oxidizable organic matter in a sample.

It only requires 2 3 hours to obtain the

concentration.

Total organic carbon (TOC) measures organic carbon

concentration in a sample. It utilizes acid to oxidize
organic carbon.

During BOD test, the microorganisms consumed the

biodegradable organic materials and dissolved oxygen
and produce CO2, H2O and biomass/biosolids.

River water quality

The quality of surface water should be capable to sustain ecosystem in a river.
Malaysian quality of a river can be classified into 5 categories according to the limit of measured
parameters.

Class I is the best water and Class IV only suitable for irrigation.
Melaka River

The Citarum

Effluent
The effluent quality standard monitors the treated effluent from a process or factory before disposal into the river
or water course.

This is to ensure the river/water course is not polluted.

All the treated effluent from sewage treatment plants, factories or other sources must meet the effluent standard.

Toilet/greywater

(INFLUENT)
Sewage/Wastewater treatment
plant (INDAH WATER)

TREAT THE
WASTEWATER

DISCHARGE (EFFLUENT)
MEET STANDARD A or B

Drinking water quality

All water treatment plant must treat the raw water to fulfill the drinking water standard. Each country has its own drinking water
standard. Some are more stringent than others.

Malaysian river water quality index (WQI)

Department of Environment (DOE) under Ministry of Natural Resources

and Environment had proposed an index similar to Air pollution index,

known as Water Quality index. WQI incorporates the concentration of
dissolved oxygen, BOD, COD, Ammonia, suspended solids and pH. The
percentage of contribution of each parameter is empirically based and using
mathematical model to develop.

Calculations

Study on Water Quality Parameters of Linggi and Melaka Rivers Catchments in Malaysia
Saman Daneshmand*, Bujang B. K. Huat, Hossein Moayedi, and Thamer Ahmad Mohammad Ali
Department of Civil Engineering, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

THANK YOU
WQI EXERCISE