When designing any object of industrial or housing and communal services, agricultural objects, water management calculation is carried out. As a result, the volumes of water consumption and water disposal necessary for the normal household and industrial functioning of the designed facility become known.
In the special literature and regulatory documents, the name for water management calculation is defined - the balance of water consumption and water disposal. Water consumption includes the full amount of water - drinking and technical, spent on the water supply of this facility. Wastewater - the volume of water from an enterprise (residential building) in the form of domestic or industrial effluents entering a centralized sewage system or filtering fields, terrain or diverted to a water body.
The balance of water consumption and sanitation characterizes the ratio of the volume of water entering the facility with the volume of liquid waste discharged from the facility after using water for domestic or industrial purposes. According to the principle of equilibrium (balance), the values of water consumption and water disposal should be equal to or differ by the amount of irrevocable water consumption, which is typical for enterprises that use water in their output (for example, bottled water). Also, the volume of water disposal can differ from the volume of water consumption by the amount of water evaporation or filtering it into underground horizons (for example, discharge of effluents from a gold recovery plant into a large tailing dump).
The balance of water consumption and sanitation also includes the amount of precipitation entering the territory of the enterprise (snowmelt, rain) and in the form of storm runoff falling into the storm sewer.
One of the documents when obtaining a license (permit) for the use of a surface water object or for obtaining a license for the extraction of
groundwater is the balance of water consumption and water disposal. The same calculation is necessary when designing communications for an uninterrupted supply of water. Based on the design volume of water consumption, the geometric parameters of the pipelines and the capacity of the pumps for water supply are laid. Calculation of wastewater is needed for trouble-free drainage of sewage from the served area, followed by treatment of sewage contaminated water at wastewater treatment plants. The obtained volumes of water consumption and water disposal are taken as the basis of the estimated payment at the conclusion of the contract for the supply of water or for the reception of sewage into the sewer system.
Examples of design calculations of water consumption and water disposal are given in the reference and special literature, water use norms are indicated in construction normative documents. Recently, suppliers of drinking water require consumers to equip water and sewer networks with water meters, which helps to obtain accurate information on actual volumes of water use.
When calculating water use, it is possible to determine the energy costs required for water production. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the loss of electrical energy to overcome obstacles in the pipelines, since the pumping equipment works with a certain
efficiency (efficiency).The calculation of the balance of water use can be done by any competent engineer. Specialized institutions are happy to accept such calculations, but this service is not cheap.