Water Treatment and Supply

Access to safe drinking water is a prerequisite for all human beings. Other than drinking, water is used for industrial, commercial, agricultural, recreational, and many other uses. Due to the contamination of watercourses (surface water and groundwater) by municipal, agricultural, and industrial wastes, the quality of the water has been continuously degraded. Therefore, the water abstracted from the contaminated watercourses should undergo proper treatment before being provided to the end-user. “Water treatment” is a process that improves the quality of water to make it more acceptable for a specific end-use by removing the contaminants and undesirable components or reduces their concentration.

Some of our main focuses include:

  • Development of criteria for forming and maintaining Sludge Blanket in an Upflow Sludge Blanket Clarifier/Pulsator
  • Analysis of root causes of the excessive Chlorine demand in water treatment
  • Poly Aluminum Chloride as an alternative to Alum as a Coagulant in water treatment
  • Management practices of sludge generated from the water treatment in Sri Lanka
  • Development of guidelines for Best Practices in Water Quality Management for Rural Water Supplies – Based on the Water Safety Plan Approach
  • Use of WSP Concepts in Risk Mitigation of Distribution Systems at Under Capacity Operation: A Case Study on Kandy South Water Distribution System
  • Root Causes for the failures of existing Sewerage System in Colombo Municipal Council area

Publications

  • Perera, K. T. N., Wijayaratna, T. M. N., Jayatillake, H. M., Manatunge, J. M. A., & Priyadarshana, T. (2020). Hydrological principle behind the development of series of bunds in ancient tank cascades in small catchments, Sri Lanka. Water Practice & Technology15(4), 1174-1189.
  • Illangasinghe, W., Manatunge, J., Ratnayake, N., & Jayasuriya, N. (2020). Effects of influent temperature variation on floc blanket behavior and effluent water quality. Water Supply20(6), 2275-2283.
  • Perera, K. T. N., Wijayaratna, T. M. N., Jayatillake, H. M., Priyadarshana, T., & Manatunge, J. M. A. (2020). Implications of storage state behaviour of village tanks in adaptation to climate change, Sri Lanka. Journal of Water and Climate Change.
  • Illangasinghe, W., Ratnayake, N., Manatunge, J., & Jayasuriya, N. (2019). Cohesivity, Formation of Particle Clusters, and Blanket Settling Velocity in a Fluidized Bed. Journal of Environmental Engineering145(4), 04019003.
  • Illangasinghe, W., Ratnayaka, N., Manatunge, J., & Jayasuriya, N. (2019). Coagulant dose as an operating parameter in a solid contact clarifier. Water Practice and Technology14(1), 27-35.
  • Asarudeen, A. M., Tushara Chaminda, Ellawala, K. C., Shayan, M. N. M., & Gunawardana, W. B. (2019). Evaluation of the water quality of community managed water supply schemes in Matara district, ACEPS-2019, 7th International Symposium on Advances in Civil and Environmental Engineering Practices for sustainable development, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, 113-117.
  • Jayasuriya, N., Illangasinghe, W. K., Ratnayake, N., & Manatunge, J. M. A. (2014). Evaluation of the Performance of a Sludge Blanket Clarifier in Water Treatment.
  • Ratnayake, N., Manatunge, J., & Hapuarachchi, D. P. (2012). Dealing with algal toxins and dissolved organics in drinking water. Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste16(2), 118-124.