Design and applicability of the OBM process for New Delhi

Delhi, the capital city of India is facing many problems of water shortage which are exacerbated by the population growth, urbanization, industrialization and migration. As part of the WP 7.9 of the TECHNEAU integrated project, the feasibility of the OBM process combined with river bank filtration to provide a sustainable and safe drinking water supply for Delhi is investigated within this report. The OBM process belong to the " multi-barrier " concept and represent the characteristics to be a strongly robust process since it comprises of an oxidation step, a biofiltration step and a membrane filtration step. The removal of the different contaminants present in the river bank filtered water is assessed step by step within the OBM. The results of the assessment show that except for fluoride, all the contaminants have the potential of being removed by the OBM. However, with additional treatment such as activated alumina filtration or coagulation, possible treatment improvements could be achieved to provide a safe drinking water.