Application of Artificial Neural Networks to Estimate Wastewater Treatment Plant Inlet Biochemical Oxygen Demand

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) has been shown to be an important variable in water quality management and planning. However, BOD is difficult to measure and needs longer time periods (5 days) to get results. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are being used increasingly to predict and forecast water resource variables. The objective of this research was to develop an ANNs model to estimate daily BOD in the inlet of wastewater biochemical treatment plants. The plantscale data set (364 daily records of the year 2005) was obtained from a local wastewater treatment plant. Various combinations of daily water quality data, namely chemical oxygen demand (COD), water discharge (Qw), suspended solid (SS), total nitrogen (N), and total phosphorus (P) are used as inputs into the ANN so as to evaluate the degree of effect of each of these variables on the daily inlet BOD. The results of the ANN model are compared with the multiple linear regression model (MLR). Mean square error, average absolute relative error, and coefficient of determination statistics are used as comparison criteria for the evaluation of the model performance. The ANN technique whose inputs are COD, Qw, SS, N, and P gave mean square errors of 708.01, average absolute relative errors of 10.03%, and a coefficient of determination 0.919, respectively. On the basis of the comparisons, it was found that the ANN model could be employed successfully in estimating the daily BOD in the inlet of wastewater biochemical treatment plants. 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 27: 439–446, 2008