In the present study, triplicate rings of 360° pipe surfaces of an operational drinking water distribution pipe were swabbed. Each ring was equally divided into 16 parts for swabbing. The collected swabs were grouped into 3 sections and compared with the biofilm samples sampled by sonication of specimens from the same pipe. The results showed that the biofilm is unevenly distributed over the 16 parts and the 3 sections of the pipe surface. Both the active biomass and the number of observed OTUs increased as the measurements proceeded from the top to the bottom of the pipe. The bacterial community was dominated in all sections by Proteobacteria. At the genus level, Nitrospira spp., Terrimonas spp., and Hyphomicrobium spp. were dominant in all sections. Gaiella spp. and Vicinamibacter spp. dominated in S-I, Blastopirellula spp. and Pirellula spp. dominated in S-II, while Holophaga spp. and Phaeodactylibacter spp. dominated in S-III. When swabbing and pipe specimen sonication were compared, the results showed that the sampling strategy significantly influences the obtained biofilm bacterial community. A consistent multisectional swabbing strategy is proposed for future biofilm sampling; it involves collecting swabs from all sections and comparing the swabs from the same position/section across locations.

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Although water produced by reverse osmosis (RO) filtration has low bacterial growth potential (BGP), post-treatment of RO permeate, which is necessary prior to distribution and human consumption, needs to be examined because of the potential re-introduction of nutrients/contaminants. In this study, drinking water produced from anaerobic groundwater by RO and post-treatment (ion exchange, calcite contactors, and aeration) was compared with that produced by conventional treatment comprising (dry) sand filtration, pellet softening, rapid sand filtration, activated carbon filtration, and UV disinfection. The multi-parametric assessment of biological stability included bacterial quantification, nutrient concentration and composition as well as bacterial community composition and diversity. Results showed that RO permeate remineralised in the laboratory has an extremely low BGP (50 ± 12 × 10³ ICC/mL), which increased to 130 ± 10 × 10³ ICC/mL after site post-treatment. Despite the negative impact of post-treatment, the BGP of the finished RO-treated water was >75% lower than that of conventionally treated water. Organic carbon limited bacterial growth in both RO-treated and conventionally treated waters. The increased BGP in RO-treated water was caused by the re-introduction of nutrients during post-treatment. Similarly, OTUs introduced during post-treatment, assigned to the phyla of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes (75–85%), were not present in the source groundwater. Conversely, conventionally treated water shared some OTUs with the source groundwater. It is clear that RO-based treatment achieved an extremely low BGP, which can be further improved by optimising post-treatment, such as using high purity calcite. The multi-parametric approach adopted in this study can offer insights into growth characteristics including limiting nutrients (why) and dominating genera growing (who), which is essential to manage microbiological water quality in water treatment and distribution systems.

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Guaranteeing a safe and continuous drinking water supply for the city of Cali, Colombia, has become a concern for the water company of Cali, the environmental authorities, universities, and entities involved in the water resource. The progressive deterioration of the city’s water sources has led to a search for future water sources and/or technologies in order to ensure high water quality standards at minimal costs. This paper describes a variety of problems occurring in the current water supply system in Cali and gives a description of the alternatives that have been considered to solve these problems in the past decades. Multi-criteria analysis was applied to assess alternatives for safe drinking supplies, demonstrating their suitability during the decision-making process when constraints arise due to political, community and institutional interests.

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In times of restructuring governmental policies and resources, the
need for strategic asset management is growing. Maturity models offer
organisations a structure to assist them in improving their asset management
performance. We present the results of a repeated maturity measurement based
on the infrastructure management maturity matrix (IM3) in Rijkswaterstaat, a
Dutch public infrastructure organisation. The IM3 distinguishes five maturity
levels from ad hoc to optimised, and seven asset management dimensions:
information management, internal coordination, external coordination, market
approach, risk management, processes and roles, and culture and leadership.
The results show significant progress on all dimensions, and continued learning
and widespread awareness of asset management in the organisation. In the
discussion, we reflect on the findings and possible future developments for the
organisation. We also discuss the potential impact of infrastructure maturity
models for the professionalisation of other asset intensive organisations@en