Heuristic screening methodology for regional wastewater-treatment planning

A simple and efficient heuristic screening methodology is presented for use in the regional planning of wastewater-treatment systems. The proposed approach provides a powerful tool to aid practicing engineers in the decision-making process regarding optimal locations of regional wastewater collection and treatment facilities. The criterion for eliminating nonoptimal treatment-plant sites for every wastewater source in the region considered is the critical distance parameter. This nonoptimality conditional parameter is derived from the interrelation between the lower bound on transportation cost and the upper bound on regionalization efficiency. The resulting method is able to significantly reduce the number of candidate locations of shared facilities for regionalized treatment. The final optimal solution may then be selected from the remaining attractive alternative plans by employing conventional mathematical programming procedures. One case example, taken from a previous paper, and four actual large-scale problems are analyzed and discussed. Enhancement of regional systems management is a principal benefit of the proposed methodology.