Turbides

Turbidity
What is turbidity?
What causes turbidity?
Which is the maximum allowed turbidity in drinking water?
What are the consequences of high turbidity? What are the impacts of turbidity?How do we measure turbidity?

What is turbidity?
Turbidity is a measure of the degree to which the water loses its transparency due to the presence of suspended particulates.
The more totalsuspended solids in the water, the murkier it seems and the higher the turbidity.
Turbidity is considered as a good measure of the quality of water.

What causes turbidity?
There are various parametersinfluencing the cloudiness of the water. Some of these are:
- Phytoplankton
- Sediments from erosion
- Resuspended sediments from the bottom (frequently stir up by bottom feeders like carp)
-Waste discharge
- Algae growth
- Urban runoff

Which is the maximum allowed turbidity in drinking water?
The WHO (World Health Organization), establishes that the turbidity of drinking watershouldn't be more than 5 NTU, and should ideally be below 1 NTU.
What are the consequences of high turbidity? The suspended particles absorb heat from the sunlight, making turbid waters become warmer, andso reducing the concentration of oxygen in the water (oxygen dissolves better in colder water). Some organisms also can’t survive in warmer water.
The suspended particles scatter the light, thusdecreasing the photosynthetic activity of plants and algae, which contributes to lowering the oxygen concentration even more.
As a consequence of the particles settling to the bottom, shallow lakes fillin faster, fish eggs and insect larvae are covered and suffocated, gill structures get clogged or damaged…

What are the impacts of turbidity?
The main impact is merely esthetic: nobody likes thelook of dirty water.
But also, it is essential to eliminate the turbidity of water in order to effectively disinfect it for drinking purposes. This adds some extra cost to the treatment of surface...