Alexander Szabo and Oscar Engle - Svenskt Vatten

In this project, a treatment pond built in 1985 at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has
been studied. Figure 1.1 below shows where UTM is situated. The treatment pond was originally
built for a population of 8 000 P.E. but is currently treating waste water from around 10 500 P.E.
from the university area. The treatment pond consists of two parallel lines each treating equal
amounts of waste water. The treated water is discharged to a small stream next to the treatment
pond. The current discharged waste water is not complying with Standard A according to
Malaysian requirements. At the moment the pond is only complying with standard B quality
which is a lower quality standard for treated waste water. The university would like to upgrade
the treatment facility so that it can comply with Malaysian Standard A requirements as the water
downstream is used for canoeing by UTM students. The idea is that a new treatment facility could
also be used for educational purposes for students from the university. Moreover, an improved
treatment facility at the university also goes hand in hand with Malaysia’s national goals to reach
a more effective and better management of waste water.
In order to get a deeper understanding of the water quality and its flow characteristics to the
current treatment pond, sampling and different kinds of measurements have been performed. The
obtained information is important as the result of the samples and measurements will be used as a
basis when designing an improved and more effective treatment facility.
Figure 1.1: Map of Malaysia and the location of UTM, Johor Bahru. (Reuterwall & Thorén, 2009)
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