w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4

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Review

ICA and me e A subjective review

Gustaf Olsson
Lund University, Lund, Sweden

article info abstract

Article history: ICA e instrumentation, control and automation e is a hidden technology. It is ubiquitous in
Received 10 September 2011 all industrial processes, including water and wastewater treatment systems. Still, as long
Received in revised form as everything works fine, it is not noted but when things go wrong it will be observed. ICA
22 December 2011 has now about forty years of history in water and wastewater systems and is well recog-
Accepted 27 December 2011 nized. One early attitude was that ICA will be a necessary burden to be added to a plant in
Available online 13 January 2012 order to correct for a poor design. However, the key reason for ICA is the fact that all
processes are subject to disturbances, externally via the wastewater influent, from the
Keywords: customers in a water supply system, or from operations in one unit process that will
Instrumentation propagate as a disturbance to another unit within a plant.
Sensors This paper is an attempt to describe the development of ICA in water and wastewater
Control systems. Most of it is based on personal experiences with all their limitations. No single
Automation paper can fairly describe the development that is documented in thousands of research
Monitoring papers, practiced by so many operators and process engineers and implemented in so
Operation many treatment systems. Still, the hope is that the paper can give a flavour of the most
Water important ingredients of this fascinating development.
Wastewater ª 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1586
2. The early years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1588
2.1. The first ICA conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1588
2.2. Pioneering control and automation projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1589
2.3. Understanding the dissolved oxygen dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590
2.4. Early computer control experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1592
3. Subsequent ICA conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1593
4. Sensors and actuators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596
4.1. On-line sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596
4.2. Respirometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1597
4.3. Actuators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1598
5. Modelling efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1599
5.1. Activated sludge reactor models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1599
5.2. Clarifier and settler dynamical models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1600

E-mail address: Gustaf.Olsson@iea.lth.se.

0043-1354/$ e see front matter ª 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.watres.2011.12.054
1586 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4

5.3. Numerical solutions of the clarifier and settler dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1601

5.4. Modelling uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1601
6. Data analysis and monitoring in wastewater systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1602
6.1. Data acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1602
6.2. On-line parameter estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1602
6.2.1. Estimation of the clarifier behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1603
6.2.2. Estimating nitrate concentration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1603
6.2.3. Using soft sensors for sensor diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1603
6.3. Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1603
6.4. Knowledge-based systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1604
7. Leakage detection and localisation in water distribution systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1604
8. Process control in wastewater treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605
8.1. DO control revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605
8.2. Control of unit processes in activated sludge systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1606
8.2.1. Nitrogen removal control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1606
8.2.2. Nitrate recirculation control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1606
8.2.3. Return sludge control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1606
8.2.4. External carbon dosage rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607
8.2.5. Chemical dosage control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607
8.3. Microbial population optimisation as a result of control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607
8.4. Control of anaerobic digesters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1608
8.5. Other control strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1609
8.5.1. Hedging point strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1609
8.5.2. Controlling extreme events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1609
8.5.3. Fuzzy control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1609
9. Benchmarking control systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1609
10. Control of water supply systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1610
11. Plant-wide control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1611
12. Driving forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614
12.1. Technical driving forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614
12.2. Regulatory driving forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1615
12.3. The human factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1615
13. People I met and some lessons I learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1616
14. The future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1616
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1617
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1618

1. Introduction interpreted: signal patterns must be analyzed and various

signals can be combined and compared to expected behav-
Instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) is a hidden iour. This can form the basis for some action. ICA is not one
technology. It is not noticed as long as it works. Still it is large black box in a control room without any people. The
becoming ubiquitous in most water systems. ICA was recog- ideal ICA system contains:
nized already in the early 1970s by IWA (International Water
Association) and its predecessors IAWPRC (International
A quality team of people who feel a deep sense of ownership
Association on Water Pollution Research and Control) and of the system and who are committed to the continuous
IAWQ (International Association on Water Quality) as an improvement ethics;
important technology to improve operation in both water and
An instrumentation system that gathers adequate process
wastewater operations and to satisfy both quality of the variable information;
effluent and efficiency of the operation. Two key technical-
A monitoring system to gather data, process and display
driving forces made this possible: the development of process the data, detect and isolate measurement faults or
computers and of on-line instrumentation. Today ICA is process abnormal situations, assist in diagnosis and
certainly much more established and almost every water and advice, and finally simulate the consequences of opera-
wastewater treatment plant is supplied with a computer tional adjustments. Proper data acquisition and reporting
control system. is crucial;
ICA includes all the information that is generated and used
A control system to meet the goals of the operation. This is
in a system. With today’s computer technology and instru- implemented both locally within each unit process and as
mentation we take it for granted to get a lot of data. However, co-ordination of the various unit processes within the
data rich is not the same as information rich. Data has to be plant.
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
The need for ICA can be motivated in many different ways.
“The effluent water looks fine and satisfies the regulator”. But
how good is it? Will it meet the regulations and the scrutiny of
tomorrow? Can we trim the operating costs? Will the plant
handle the inevitable load increases? How big a load will it
take before more tank volume is needed? Effluent standards
will get tighter. Already the regulations in some countries
must be met on the basis of spot checks, not monthly aver-
ages. Failure to comply will cost dearly. Recurrent budgets are
getting tighter and will get even tighter.
Both drinking water and wastewater systems need control,
not only to guarantee the quality of the water. Efficiency and
energy costs are becoming increasingly important with rising
energy prices. The water and energy interdependence is more
and more recognized. Water lost by leakages in a water
distribution system is an energy loss. All of this motivates
more on-line monitoring and control.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) contributes to the global greenhouse
effect by about 6%. The N2O is around 300 times more efficient
to absorb heat compared to CO2. The atmosphere contains
only a small amount of the gas, but it will stay there for about
150 years. Since N2O can be produced in nitrification and
denitrification processes it is of great interest to control the
GHG emission in activated sludge operations. Recent studies
have shown that dynamic conditions can cause increased N2O
emission (Kampschreur et al., 2008).
All processes can be controlled to perform better. It is the
process knowledge, the sensor technology and the way the
plants have been designed and built that may limit what can
be achieved today. We also know that wastewater processes
have some unique features compared to other process
industries: the flow rates, the disturbances, the small
concentrations, the organisms, the separation, and the fact
that all the “raw material” has to be accepted and treated. The
critical issues are the attitudes and incentives. Of course
the attitudes often depend on the incentives. Today we have
the incentives to invest in ICA and we can use many of the
results from other process industries that introduced ICA
earlier.
The motivation for all control is the presence of distur-
bances. The load to a wastewater treatment plant is hardly
ever constant. The flow rate, the concentrations and the
composition of the influent wastewater are changing all the
time. In many cases there is an order of magnitude difference
between the lowest and the highest load during the day. Many
disturbances are created internally, within the plant, as
a result of the operation. Several recycle flows can cause
major operational problems unless they are carefully
controlled, such as the return sludge flow rate, nitrate recir-
culation, digester supernatants, or backwash filter flows. With
all these disturbances it is impossible to operate any plant
with constant settings of pumps, compressors, valves and
other actuators.
Drinking water systems are also subject to disturbances.
The systems are driven by the customer demands and the
water production has to track the consumer behaviour. The
plant can usually only level the daily consumption patterns. In
a distribution system the pressure has to be controlled. With
a variable pressure control energy can be saved and the
occurrence of leakages can become less frequent.
1587
Disturbances caused by leakages or water quality distur-
bances have to be detected and located, and actions have to be
taken.
We often describe control and automation in three major
levels:

Keep the plant running;

Satisfy the effluent requirements;

Maximize the efficiency.
On the primary level of plant operation, the equipment, we
nowadays take control for granted. Levels, flow rates, pres-
sures and temperatures are mostly controlled automatically
via pumps, compressors and valves. These controls will keep
the plant running. At this level there are standardized control
loops that are common in any process industry. Automation
vendors usually have sufficient knowledge to install success-
ful operation to keep the plant running.
On the next level there are many concentration control
loops. In an activated sludge plant automatic control of dis-
solved oxygen (DO), sludge age, return sludge and other
concentrations are proven methodologies. In most plants this
level of control is successful. It helps to maintain the effluent
quality; it allows unmanned operation during nights and
weekends and saves energy and other operational costs.
However, already at this second level there are many control
systems that fail. The reason is not that the control is difficult
or that the sensors are not sufficiently robust. The simple
reason is that many implementers do not have sufficient
knowledge of the process dynamics or do not efficiently
communicate their knowledge to colleagues. Sensors are
located at wrong positions, data analysis is not adequate,
sampling frequencies are often unrealistic (mostly too fast), or
the controller settings are not adequate.
On-line nutrient sensors are becoming common and
affordable. This makes it possible to control the dissolved
oxygen with a variable setpoint, depending on the ammonia
removal. The dosage of chemicals can be based on on-line
phosphate measurements and the recirculation of the
nitrate rich water in pre-denitrification plants can be based on
nitrate measurements in the anoxic reactor. Most often the
payback time for the more costly instruments is amazingly
short. Energy can be saved and the dosage of chemicals can be
minimized. Other sensors, like pH and gas flow rate, make it
possible to run an anaerobic digester with higher throughput
while still keeping the operation safe.
To maximize the efficiency also means that we can no
longer operate each unit process in isolation. Instead a plant-
wide or a system-wide approach is in demand. The sludge
production in the liquid train of an activated sludge system has
to be related to the desired sludge level in the anaerobic
digestion to produce biogas. The operation of the sewer has to
relate to the capacity of the wastewater treatment system. The
electrical energy consumption in the plant has to be minimized
and this requires a plant-wide perspective. A wastewater
treatment plant can serve as a net energy producer using the
energy from biogas and effluent heat content. It is obvious that
wastewater treatment plant operation is complex. What
makes it increasingly complex is the mentioned requirements
of efficient operation all around the clock. The plant has to
1588 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
consistently meet disturbances, making maximum use of
available volumes, and all the time satisfy the requirement of
the effluent quality. To give a consistent and clear order to
control goals is a truly multi-criteria decision problem and is
considered to be the overall challenge of ICA.
Also for a drinking water plant the control has to be plant-
wide so that high efficiency is obtained. All water that is
produced has to meet the quality criteria. There is a tight
coupling between the unit processes which forces the control
to take the couplings into consideration.
I have to admit that I accepted the invitation to write about
“ICA and me” with mixed feelings. On one hand I was excited
to describe my own personal journey to understand and
control urban water and wastewater systems and to describe
my experiences. On the other hand I was fearful: to include
“me” in the title is pretentious. So many gifted researchers
and other professionals have made great impact on the ICA
development. How can I possibly add anything of interest and
be fair to all significant contributions? Just from the ten ICA
conferences arranged by IWA around 800 papers have been
published. This article is a record of a personal journey that
started in 1972 and is still going on. It is not a conventional
state-of-the-art paper on ICA. Rather it reflects personal
discoveries, disappointments, encouraging developments and
personal hopes. Many applications of ICA have not been
described satisfactorily and have been overlooked due to the
subjective perspective. A more detailed description of the ICA
area is found in the textbook Olsson and Newell (1999) and in
the state-of-the-art report Olsson et al. (2005).
I will narrate the early years of ICA from my own experi-
ences. Most of them are from the wastewater treatment areas
but also water distribution problems, in particular leakage
detection and localisation. The ICA conferences organized by
IWA and its predecessors give quite a good reflection of the
progress in ICA over the years, Sec. 2-3. Overviews of sensors
and actuators (Sec. 4), modelling for control (Sec. 5), data
analysis and monitoring (Sec. 6) are presented. Leakage
detection in water distribution is another application of
monitoring, described in Sec. 7. Various unit process control
aspects in wastewater treatment are reviewed in Sec. 8 and
ways to test monitoring and control systems via bench-
marking are discussed in Sec. 9. Controlling drinking water
systems is briefly described in Sec. 10, and in Sec. 11 the
concepts of system-wide or plant-wide control are outlined.
Over the years I have experienced the importance of driving
forces and incentives, Sec. 12. Maybe most important, I have
met some truly dedicated people that became role models,
Sec. 13. So, what is the future? I will speculate in Sec. 14.
2. The early years
In the early 1970s the control of biological systems was
a matter of art rather than science and the fundamental
kinetics upon which automation systems must be based was
just becoming apparent. This naturally brought up the ques-
tions of “detectors” or instruments, control methods, oper-
ating equipment and computer programs. Chemical
processes, on the other hand, were not subject to the
supposed vagaries of the biological processes. They were
considered straightforward in terms of reactors and were
regarded as easily instrumented for process control.
Automation had been applied in commercial biological
production systems, such as beer or antibiotic manufacturing,
but not in wastewater treatment. The theoretical background
for wastewater treatment operations was weaker, there was
a limited availability of proper instruments for a hostile
environment, and the educational level of the operations
personnel was not as good as today. The inherent difficulties
in biological treatment processes included the constantly
varying and unpredictable nature of the raw wastewater feed
and the need to handle vast quantities of water while trying to
utilize its 0.03e0.06% of organic matter as substrate for
a continuous biological reaction.
2.1. The first ICA conference
A conference in Vienna in 1971 on “Design-Operation Inter-
actions for Large Wastewater Treatment Plants” arranged by
IAWPR (The International Association on Water Pollution
Research, the predecessor of IAWPRC, IAWQ and IWA)
became an important event to put the attention to ICA. Some
operations people realised that designers had been working
on wastewater treatment plant automation without complete
awareness of what had been going on elsewhere. The lively
discussion, which developed at the conference, clearly indi-
cated that the ICA topics were of such widespread and current
interest that a subsequent conference should be devoted
exclusively to them.
The first instrumentation and control conference under
the sponsorship of IAWPR was held in London in 1973 thanks
to the pioneering efforts by the organisers Carmen Guarino
(City of Philadelphia, USA), Tony Drake (Greater London
Council, UK), John F. Andrews (Clemson Univ., USA) and Ron
Briggs (Water Pollution Research Laboratory, UK). This was my
first ICA conference, and it has been followed by another nine
conferences arranged within IWA and its predecessors, every
fourth year until 2009.
I started my personal journey as a nuclear engineer in the
Swedish power industry and then turned into a control engi-
neer in the 1960s. The transformation into a water engineer
was initiated in 1972. Dr. Karl Eklund, the first PhD student
from our Department of Automatic Control, Lund University
had joined the Axel Johnson Institute for Industrial Research
in Sweden. He is the one that asked me the crucial question in
1972: “It seems to me that all wastewater treatment plants are
designed from steady-state principles. However, the systems
never seem to be in steady state. Isn’t there a role for auto-
matic control?” I promised to initiate a feasibility study. After
that I was caught by wastewater treatment control. As
expressed at the London conference: “We accept that vari-
ability is of great importance, but being faced with the task of
expressing its effect on performance had to conclude that at
the present time there are no data on which to assess its
effects”. This looked as a perfect challenge for a control
engineer. Disturbances and dynamical changes motivate the
whole existence of control theory! At that time, however, it
was difficult to predict my life-long engagement in the water
area. The control challenges and problems were summarized
in two early reports (Olsson et al., 1973; Olsson, 1974) and they
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
formed the basis for our work for the next decade on
controlling wastewater treatment systems.
The London 1973 conference attracted 225 people and 64
papers were presented. At the conference several compu-
terised systems from large city plants e such as Atlanta,
Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris and Philadelphia e were
presented. Typically the computer systems performed data
acquisition but hardly any closed loop plant control.
Computer implementations of PID-controllers for some lower
level controls were demonstrated. An investigation of some 50
municipal wastewater treatment plants in the USA revealed
only a few closed loops and these were usually low-level
control, often called the PLC level control. Few papers
addressed research issues on ICA and most of the control
systems presented had been designed on an empirical basis.
Instrumentation was a key issue. The sensors offered for
wastewater control appeared to be those developed for other
industries and were not really suitable for the usually hostile
conditions of wastewater processing. Instrumentation had
been compared in 8 European countries. Germany appeared to
be the most advanced in the instrumentation field, as applied
to the monitoring of effluent and river waters. Several authors
addressed dissolved oxygen (DO) control and the potential
energy savings were well recognised. Ron Briggs (1973) had
demonstrated DO control in a nitrifying plant at the Rye
Meads sewage works, and Chuck Wells and Dave Stepner had
applied DO control in the city plant of Palo Alto, California
(Petersack and Stepner, 1973). John Andrews presented some
control challenges for activated sludge systems and demon-
strated simulation results. The four people mentioned here
have given the author a lot of inspiration over the years.
In many countries there was a real shortage of qualified
operators. With new regulations this scarcity was to be even
larger. The solution to the problem was seen in automation.
However, this was looked at as a real threat from many
workers and unions and the fear for unemployment was a real
obstacle for automation during the 1970s. We got first hand
experiences of this fear, which is commented in Sec. 2.4. Still,
phasing out unskilled labour was considered the only solution
to achieve optimum efficiency of the operation. Later, in
London 1977, L. H. Thompson, UK, remarked: “it is likely that
in many cases the justification for an automated system will
not lie in a saving in staff, but in a quicker and more reliable
response to variable operational circumstances”. The later ICA
development has proven this statement to be correct.
A statement by Kukudis (1973) at the 1973 London confer-
ence reflects the potential for control: “Even if we had the
most sophisticated, automated plant in existence, it still
would not be able to operate at maximum efficiency, because
the designs of wastewater treatment plants are based on
uniform combined sewer flow with consideration for periodic
intensity due to storm flow or periodic lows during dry
weather spells or hours of least demand. So, much of the time
the flow into the plant is either above or below the maximum
efficiency level.” Control can use the available but often un-
used capacities. This motivated an absolute need for control
of flow in the sewers. “We must speak of automation in the
entire system e the network of sewers and the plants”. This
was stated almost four decades ago! Still today we have to
implement better plant-wide control and we design for
1589
maximum load conditions. This leaves plenty of space for
optimization. Sewer control was applied in Cleveland in the
early 1970s (Kukudis, 1973). During dry periods flow equal-
ization was used. During storm periods the system was
designed to primarily capture and treat the first 20 min of flow
during the storm period. This is what we today call the first
flush, having the highest concentrations of pollutants. Any
necessary bypassing after the first period would be of diluted
effluent.
In terms of automation of biological processes it was
obvious that most of the work had to be done to develop
a better process understanding, i.e. knowing the kinetics
better and to obtain better on-line sensors. It was obvious in
the early 1970s that both of these developments had to come
from the wastewater industry itself. The alternatives were
either that instrument and automation experts should learn
wastewater treatment or that the wastewater professionals
would learn automation theory and instrumentation
development.
2.2. Pioneering control and automation projects
In 1970s it was not apparent what was meant by automation.
The closest approach to complete automation was considered
to be in the spacecrafts, where there had to be absolute reli-
ability and therefore 100% duplication for each critical oper-
ational part. (The first lunar landing had taken place in 1969.
The computer was equipped with 64 kbytes of core memory
and no disk. About 1000 man-years had been invested in the
real time software to use the 64 kbytes of the Apollo computer.
Still the autopilot for landing on the moon did not work as
expected and the final control had to be taken over by the
pilots.) It was quickly realized that cost alone prohibited
complete automation for earth-bound processes. Process
control steps had to be speeded up by installing computers
that could perform control and modelling. A computer could
also provide an expandable platform capable of computer
control of the biological processes when the necessary kinetic
theory and sensors were available. It should be noted that
automation was not expected to save manpower but to
improve operational reliability and facility capacity. The term
direct digital control (DDC) had been defined as a feedback
system where all the controllers were implemented in a time-
shared manner in a digital computer.
One example was the Hyperion Plant in Southern Cal-
ifornia. A lot of initiatives were taken from 1968 to 1973 in
order to plan for process automation. The kinetics of the
activated sludge process was studied and compared with
computer models. A steady-state model was presented by
Smith and Eilers (1969) and Bargman and Borgerding (1973). It
was planned to implement DDC for the activated sludge solids
retention time, for the airflow, for the solids feed in the
anaerobic digester and for the digested withdrawal (Bargman
et al., 1973).
Bayley and Ayling (1973) had also realized that denitrifi-
cation could save energy. In their activated sludge operation
about one-third of the oxygen required was used for oxidizing
ammonium nitrogen to nitrate. The authors found that if
a proportion of this oxidized nitrogen could be employed as an
oxygen source for oxidizing organic material it should be
1590 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
possible to reduce the “external” aeration requirements at all
times. In 1973 it was not necessary to control the discharge of
oxidized nitrogen to the surface waters in the British Isles.
Consequently denitrification was realized just to save energy.
2.3. Understanding the dissolved oxygen dynamics
The first attempt in the UK to measure DO continuously was
made by Briggs et al. (1954) using a semi-continuous color-
imeter in conjunction with the Winkler method. This was
later replaced by the dropping-mercury electrode, Briggs et al.
(1957). By the early 1970s the use of on-line DO sensors was
well established in many wastewater treatment plants. It was
realized early that DO control would be profitable both for the
biological activity and for the efficiency of the plant. DO
sensors for feedback control were tried already in pilot scale in
1967 (Briggs et al., 1967) and subsequent full scale experiments
were carried out at Rye Meads Sewage Works (Briggs, 1973).
Based on the Rye Meads experiences DO control was imple-
mented at the City of Oxford Sewage Works (Meredith, 1973).
In France, Paul Brouzes had demonstrated DO control
(Brouzes, 1969) and other installations were made in the USA
(Petersack and Stepner, 1973; Roesler, 1974). At the Reno
WWTP in Nevada, USA, DO control had been applied since
1966.
Significant energy savings were reported. It is worth
mentioning that cascade control of the DO was implemented,
e.g. at the Wantagh Treatment Plant, Nassau County, Long
Island, New York (Beckman, 1973). The DO was measured in
each aeration tank and fed to the master controller. The
output of the DO controller was fed as a setpoint value to the
airflow controller of the tank. Minimum and maximum limits
of the airflow rate were given. The airflow to each tank was
then summarized by the central processor and the informa-
tion was used in the blower control system.
There was a certain suspicion of using the dissolved
oxygen concentration for the control design. The reason was
that “too often in the design of automation systems for
wastewater biological processes there has been a tendency to
measure parameters that instrument manufacturers have
existing detectors for rather than parameters basic to the
kinetics of the process itself” (Bargman et al., 1973). One
example given was the DO. The reasoning was that “if the
organisms are not alive and/or in insufficient numbers an
activated sludge tank can be saturated with DO and show little
or no BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) or COD (chemical
oxygen demand) reduction”. Instead the respiration of the
active organisms would be a direct index of the process
condition.
Soon after the inspiration from the 1973 London conference
we started experiments at a large Swedish wastewater treat-
ment plant, the Käppala plant. The plant had been completed
in 1969 and now served 300,000e400,000 people in the northern
suburbs of Stockholm. This was one of the first plants to install
a computer system (Siemens) for on-line data acquisition. This
contributed to the fact that the 1977 ICA conference in London
reconvened in Stockholm. The plant is built completely
underground. The average dry weather flow was 1.3 m3/s. The
activated sludge plant was designed as six parallel trains, each
tank having a volume of 6000 m3 and a length of 100 m. Air was
supplied by fine bubble diffusers uniformly along the reactors.
For our experiments real time data could be stored in the
computer and saved on punched paper tape for later analysis
on our Digital Equipment PDP 15/35 Computer at the Automatic
Control Department at Lund University.
We performed a large number of process identification
experiments in Käppala from late 1973 until mid 1975. The
purpose of the identification experiments was to directly
identify the DO dynamics from experiments. The fact that the
DO dynamics is much faster than the hydraulics and the
substrate utilization made it possible to isolate it in its own
time scale. By purposefully disturbing the airflow rate to the
aerated reactor the DO concentration variations in various
locations along the reactor were recorded. The influent water
flow rate was manipulated by redirecting the flow to other
parallel basins and the return sludge flow rate was purpose-
fully manipulated to create disturbances in the DO concen-
trations. The three manipulated variables were changed
independently of each other. The DO concentration y(t) was
assumed to be related to the airflow u1(t), the influent water
flow rate u2(t) and the return sludge flow rate u3(t) like
X
3
yðtÞ ¼ a1 yðt  DtÞ  .  an yðt  n$DtÞ þ ðbi1 ui ðt  DtÞ þ .
i¼1
þ ðbin ui ðt  n$DtÞ þ lðeðtÞ þ c1 eðt  DtÞ þ .
þ cn eðt  n$DtÞÞ
The sampling time Dt has to be chosen carefully and needs
to be sufficiently small so that all relevant dynamical
phenomena can be recorded. Still it has to be sufficiently large
so that all the data can be stored. It should be remembered
that the typical primary memory size was 16 kbytes. The
variable e is a stochastic variable that is normally distributed
with the standard deviation 1. It is independent in the sense
that the amplitude of e(t) is independent of e at other times.
The parameter l is a scaling of the amplitude. The parameters
ak, bik, l and ck were identified with the Maximum Likelihood
method. Different model orders n were tried out and the final
decision of model order was based on the Fischer Information
Index or the Akaike index (Åström and Eykhoff, 1971; Ljung,
1987) as well as the parameter accuracy that was estimated
from the Fischer information matrix. We used an interactive
software package for process identification, called IDPAC,
which had been developed under the leadership of Karl J.
Åström, Department of Automatic Control, Lund University.
IDPAC had a major influence on several identification projects
and can be considered the role model of the Matlab System
Identification Toolbox, later developed by Lennart Ljung. In
1973 he was a PhD student at the Department.
Quite soon it became obvious that only low-order
dynamics could be found from experiments and the most
reliable models were found to be of first order (n ¼ 1). The time
constant of the air-to-DO dynamics was estimated to be
between 15 and 30 min, depending on the location of the DO
sensor along the reactor. The identified model was compared
to the model of the DO concentration in a complete mix basin,
based on first principles,
dsO Q    
¼ sO;in  ð1 þ rÞsO þ KL a$ ssat
O  sO þ rO
dt V
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
where sO is the DO concentration and the indices in and sat
denote the influent flow and saturation, respectively. Q is the
wastewater flow rate, r the return sludge flow rate as a frac-
tion of Q, V the volume, KLa the oxygen transfer rate, and rO the
oxygen uptake rate (having a negative value). Typically it was
assumed that KLa was proportional to the airflow rate. The
model was found to be consistent with the static oxygen
transfer calculations. The dynamics from the influent flow
rate and from the return sludge flow rate were also limited to
first order, and could be explained by physical reasoning and
first principle modelling. Obviously the influence from the
airflow was dominating over other inputs.
A couple of phenomena were obvious. The gain from
airflow to the DO concentration was quite different depending
on the DO sensor location. Obviously this could be explained
by different airflow rates along the basin. The reason was
either clogging of the diffusers (ceramic) or simply too little
airflow through the corresponding airflow valve. Another
strange phenomenon appeared when a time constant of only
some 10 s was discovered. Still in 1974 we did not have a good
understanding of the DO and the DO probe dynamics. It took
some time to explain this mystifying behaviour, but it was
discovered that the DO sensor membrane was broken, so
gaseous oxygen penetrated the sensor. This could not be
discovered from static measurements, only from dynamical
changes. Therefore any discovery of a fast time constant
(indicating an unexpected high oxygen transfer rate) during
dynamical changes was a sign of an erroneous sensor. This
phenomenon is described in Chapter 12.3 of Olsson and
Newell (1999). Later on we looked at other tests of the DO
probe condition (Spanjers and Olsson, 1992). The DO probe
was repeatedly subject to a step change of the oxygen
concentration with a time interval of 15e30 s. At each step the
time constant of the probe response was estimated and this
proved to be a useful indicator of a fouling probe membrane.
At the time of the experiments in the mid 1970s we came
across several plug-flow systems. The air distribution along
the reactor could only be controlled manually, and this was
considered a very difficult task. Any change of a valve opening
along the reactor would immediately result in a new airflow
distribution that was not necessarily the desired one. Typi-
cally the oxygen uptake rate is high towards the head end of
the reactor and small close to the outlet of the reactor. As
a result the DO concentration showed a typical profile going
from very low values, rising steeply towards the second half of
the reactor and levelling off at high levels of 5e8 mg/l towards
the outlet, as depicted in Fig. 1.
With such a profile, how to determine the DO setpoint? The
textbooks recommended around 2e3 mg/l but this had no
relevance for our DO control in the plug-flow reactor. Other
performance measures had to be found. A static analysis of
the sensitivity of the DO concentration to changes in airflow
was made and it was found that the maximum sensitivity
took place in the region where the slope of the profile had its
maximum. This was also verified by the identification exper-
iments (Olsson and Hansson, 1976a).
Experienced operators, notably Torpey (1948), had found by
experience that the DO profile had to level off at around 75% of
the reactor length, indicating that the reaction had gone to
completion. It became apparent that the DO control should
1591
Fig. 1 e The DO profile in a plug-flow reactor for carbon
removal with uniform airflow distribution. The upper
figure shows the DO profile (mg/l) for different airflows.
The lower figure depicts the corresponding carbon
concentration (mgCOD/l) decrease along the plug-flow
reactor.
ensure that the DO profile should level off at some desired
location. Too early meant that too much air was used, too late
that the load was too high, requiring more air. In other words,
in order to find out the slope of the profile towards the end we
would require either two different DO probes or sample mixed
liquor at two locations and analyze in the same probe. This
was discussed in detail in Olsson and Andrews (1978).
An alternative DO control method was tried, recognizing
that we had to accept that the DO concentration had the
characteristic profile since independent air supply to the
various zones was uncommon. As Fig. 1 demonstrates the DO
profile has its maximum slope when the reaction has gone to
completion and the COD concentration is approaching zero.
For a high airflow rate the DO slope towards the outlet is small.
This indicates that the airflow rate can be decreased until the
slope has increased above a certain value. On the other hand,
if the airflow is too small, then the profile would never rise
towards the outlet. In the implementation two DO concen-
trations were measured, one close to the reactor outlet and
the other at a location around 80% along the reactor. The
distance between the sensors was chosen so that the
concentration difference could be calculated with reasonable
accuracy. If the difference was small then the (total) airflow
was decreased until the difference became sufficiently large.
To ensure an adequate aeration and mixing a minimum
airflow was defined. Furthermore, if the airflow was far too
low, then the DO profile would never rise towards the outlet.
This small slope would falsely indicate a high airflow. To avoid
this misinterpretation the outlet DO concentration always had
to exceed a certain value.
There was a problem to use two sensors. They had to be
properly calibrated, since the difference between two
concentrations was calculated. Therefore another type of
implementation was made: to pump water from two locations
to a single sensor. Obviously such a transportation of water
1592 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
and the subsequent time delay could create significant errors
in the DO concentration, so a correction of the measurement
value had to be done. The results were presented at the 1977
ICA conference (Gillblad and Olsson, 1977). As you researchers
we were proud to get the following comment from the
convenor C. H. Wells: “The paper . is the first presented here
attempting to effectively use the digital computer for the control of
the actual process. He has developed a clever control system to
measure both the suspended solids and dissolved oxygen at 6 points
in the aerator. The control system is based on information available
from existing instrumentation. He shows that this information along
with knowledge of the process can provide a useful tool for the
operator in controlling the process. This is an excellent first step in
attempting to regulate the performance of the activated sludge
process with a digital computer system.”
Today it is well recognized that the problem of DO profiles
could be solved much better by independent air supply
systems to different zones of the aerated reactor. The DO
profile analysis, however, gave a lot of insight since it is
a direct mirror of the oxygen uptake.
The lack of understanding dynamics have lasted for a long
time. A personal experience from the late 1990s can illustrate
this. We were looking at various control opportunities for
a mid-size municipal plant in America. The operator claimed
that the DO did not vary, so control would not be necessary.
When I asked for measurement data, I got the reply that the
DO was measured manually at 15.00 o’clock every day and no
variations were found. I humbly asked if the operator would
like to measure the DO every hour during a 24-h period. He
accepted and was very surprised to find out quite a substantial
variation.
2.4. Early computer control experiences
In 1973 a typical computer was the Digital Equipment Corpo-
ration PDP8 with 28 kbytes of memory, serving almost 100
analog inputs, some 200 digital outputs, and 15 analog
outputs. The operator interface was usually a black/white CRT
(cathode ray tube) while paper tape was used as the software
medium. There were also large control computers installed
having around 2000 digital inputs, 600 digital outputs, 600
analog inputs and 40 analog outputs. It is worth mentioning
the computer revolution that has taken place during the last
40 years. The author bought a real time computer for the
Department of Automatic Control in 1970s with the price 1
SEK (z0.14 US$ or 0.11 V) per bit of primary memory. (Actu-
ally, it was quite a difficult task to conquer the bureaucratic
rules to buy a computer. It had been decided on a national
level that one computing centre would be sufficient to serve
the University and no other computers would be allowed. We
managed to get around the rule by simply calling our
computer “a real time simulator”. It was equipped with A/D
and D/A converters.) In 2011 we pay just around 19 SEK per
Gbyte, a price reduction of about 5 * 108. It is interesting to
compare with Moore’s law. (The observation made in 1965 by
Gordon Moore e co-founder of Intel e that the number of
transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled
every year since the integrated circuit was invented. This was
only four years after the first planar integrated circuit was
discovered. Moore predicted that this trend would continue
for the foreseeable future. Data density has doubled approxi-
mately every 18 months. The press called it “Moore’s Law” and
the name has stuck. Most experts, including Moore himself,
expect Moore’s Law to hold for at least another two decades
(see Gordon E. Moore: Cramming more components onto
integrated circuits, Electronics, 19, 3, April 1965). For this period
Moore would have predicted a capacity increase of
228 z 3 * 108! The same is true for disk memories. Are we
taking the proper advantages of this revolution?
There was a lot of resistance to use computers for control
in the mid 1970s. The price was relatively high, and in order to
motivate such a high investment the value of the process to be
controlled had to be much higher. This in turn meant that the
complexity was substantial. In other words, there were
several obstacles to overcome: instrumentation was expen-
sive, the process dynamics was not very well known, the
actuators had to be sufficiently flexible, the computer had to
be reliable, and adequate control theory had to be developed.
During 1975 and 1976 we implemented DO control in the
Siemens computer at the Käppala treatment plant (Olsson and
Hansson, 1976b). It was performed with a PI controller in
cascade with a proportional controller for the airflow rate.
However, when more regulators were to be implemented it
was decided to get a mini computer Digital Equipment LSI 11
instead of re-programming the Siemens computer. This was
actually the first LSI computer shipped to Sweden. The LSI
computer was used during 1976 and 1977 to get further
experiences of DO control and the dynamics of the treatment
plant. We had been warned that the signal quality from the
sensors was so low that the signals could not be used for
control. This was proven to be wrong. Many cables had
probably been inadequate and some signal cables had been
placed close to power cables. Digital signal filtering was used
successfully to eliminate instrument and signal transmission
noise.
Maybe the most difficult obstacles were political and
psychological. The potential job loss would be a sensitive
political issue. Phasing out “unskilled” labour would be very
difficult. Still, increasing the professional skill of the operators
was crucial if an optimum efficiency was going to be obtained.
Operators at the plants were fearful of the computers, since
they could take away the operator job and responsibility. The
plant managers did not always see the value of the computer.
And, maybe the most difficult, the economic incentives were
not made clear.
In 1976 we cooperated with an industry to install a PDP 11-
04 computer for closed loop control of a mid-size activated
sludge plant in Sweden and the reference installation was
made in early 1977. The goal of the computer control was
primarily to control the DO concentration and the return
sludge flow rate. A number of low-level control loops were
also implemented in the computer. A major goal of the
computer installation was to get a better opportunity for
better process studies. Additionally, a simple alarm detection
system was installed. It was a rule-based system, but the
terminology of “knowledge-based” or “rule-based” were not
known at the time, and the system was simply programmed
in real time Fortran (Gillblad and Olsson, 1977).
Together with the computer installation a new measure-
ment sampling system was developed. The idea was to use
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
only one sensor and two suspended solids sensors, centrally
located. The motivation was to more accurately measure the
DO profile, as discussed in Sec. 2.3. Mixed liquor was pumped
from six different parts of the aeration basin to the sensors, so
that concentrations from various parts of the reactor would be
monitored without having the calibration problems when
measurements from several sensors would have been
compared. Each sample was about 20 l in order to ensure
a representative sample. Several quick measurements were
made of the sample and an average was calculated. In this
way the purpose was to use the shape of the DO profile as
a basis for the control action. The measurements were used to
calculate respiration rates by using the whole reactor as
a respirometer. The computer controlled the measurement
system and could partly compensate for the DO decrease of
each sample during the pumping. Still the measurement
system was quite complex and was not further developed.
Later on the idea of DO profile control could be replaced by
better possibilities to individually control the various zones of
the reactor.
The DO control system worked as intended and the rule-
based system made adequate detections. The system could
also monitor when the alarm had been corrected and this was
recorded in the computer. Still, several aspects of the project
became a failure. The reason was that nobody had involved
the operators in the planning and design of the control. As
a result, the operators feared that they would lose their jobs
and naturally did their best to make the system fail. Before the
computer installation there was a rule that if an alarm had
happened during odd hours the operators got a standard
bonus, based on a standard time, when the alarm was cor-
rected. Now the computer kept track of this time, and mostly
the used time was much shorter than the standard time. Of
course, the operators did not like the system. Instead of
reading the advice from the computer they simply turned off
the typewriter, thus eliminating the record of the time it had
taken to correct the situation after the alarm.
Still another problem was the lack of economic incentive.
We could readily calculate great savings by using closed loop
DO control. The problem was that the municipal treatment
plant had no profit incentive. Therefore the argument that we
met was simply: “it is fine that you can save 20, 30 or even 40%
of our aeration costs. However, if we implement it, then we
will simply get a correspondingly smaller budget for next year.
So, we would not gain anything.”
Many of the challenges of wastewater treatment control
were formulated in the early 1970s:

Dissolved oxygen control is important, both from a biolog-
ical and from an economic point of view. Still DO control is
not implemented in all plants. The importance of the
sampling time for DO control was well recognized. Still, this
is not a common knowledge today.

The oxygen uptake along the reactor has to be taken into
consideration. It was realized that the DO concentration
should be controlled differently in the inlet and in the outlet
areas of the reactor. However, this was difficult to imple-
ment in the 1970s.

The need for on-line instrumentation was obvious. Specific
needs were formulated, as will be discussed in Sec. 3.
1593

The design can not be based on only steady-state consid-
erations. Dynamic behaviour has to be taken into account.
The obstacle in the 1970s was sufficient dynamic model
knowledge.

The need for integrated control of a wastewater treatment
plant and the sewer was recognized. Today this is imple-
mented only in some locations.

Incentives for the operator and for the organization for
better control were discussed in the 1970s and are still
crucial conditions for good control.
3. Subsequent ICA conferences
Starting with the London conference in 1973 there has been
ten ICA conferences arranged by IWA and its predecessors. I
have noted that I am the only individual who has attended all
the ten ICA conferences from 1973 until 2009. These meetings
offer quite a good picture of the ICA development.
Following the 1973 London conference a workshop was
held in Clemson, S.C., USA in September 1974, addressing
Research Needs for Automation of Wastewater Treatment Systems
(Clemson, 1974). The workshop was sponsored by the USEPA
but appeared to be a landmark in the early ICA development
for wastewater treatment systems. John F. Andrews, Heinrich
O. Buhr and Thomas M. Keinath (later the IWA President) at
the Clemson University organised the workshop. Many
participants were invited from government regulatory and
research agencies, universities, operating engineers and
managers of large treatment systems, consulting engineering
firms and equipment manufacturers. Being a workshop,
formal presentations were mixed with working groups on
various topics. Among the 104 participants 102 came from the
USA and two from Europe, one being me. Without any doubt
this meeting had a great influence on subsequent priorities of
the ICA research.
William Rosenkranz, director at EPA, set up the tone of the
workshop, stating: “A treatment system should no longer be
considered as a marginal water pollution control facility, but
rather as a production facility for wastewater refining or
renovation”. It was recognized that there was a lack of more
fundamental knowledge concerning dynamic behaviour,
control strategies, component reliability, cost-benefit analysis
of ICA and the effect of automation on design.
In Sec. 2.3 we noted the development of the DO sensor. At
the time for the Clemson workshop a survey of some 50 plants
in the USA had been made and it was found that 12% of the
plants had automatic on-line DO control implemented.
A number of research needs were identified. Some of these
were:

Sensors: Development of efficient and dependable sensors.
Some of the key variables included flow rates, sludge
blanket level, settling velocity, respiration rate, suspended
solids, short-term BOD, ammonia, nitrate and phosphorous;

Instrument testing: A central location for gathering and
dispensing information on instrumentation testing. Such
a device “would be of considerable assistance”;

Performance specifications should be developed for sensors
and instrumentation as a guide to the user community;
1594 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4

Modelling: Development of dynamic mathematical models
for individual processes, using latest data available. An
important long-term goal was the incorporation of the
individual process models into an overall mathematical
model for treatment plants;

Control: Control strategies based on computer simulation
using mathematical models should be developed; Control
strategies should be evaluated in pilot scale to select the
most promising ones for future demonstration. These
strategies should be demonstrated in full scale, including
cost/benefit analysis; Control designs should be expanded to
include interrelationships between liquid and solids pro-
cessing, storm water and dry weather flow control and
treatment and eventually area-wide or system-wide
wastewater treatment.
Some of these visions have not yet become true, so there
is still work to do! Professor John Andrews (1930e2011)
recognized the need for education at all levels when he
noted: “A course in Process Dynamics and Control is
commonly found in most chemical engineering curricula.
We would be well advised to include a course in Dynamics
and Control of Wastewater Treatment Systems in environ-
mental engineering curricula.” Today there are such cour-
ses, but it has taken a long time to make John Andrews’
vision come true.
Fig. 2 e Participation at the ten IWA-ICA conferences from different countries (in percent).
Below we will show a rough summary of the contributions
from the ten ICA conferences. Obviously there is a great
number of ICA publications outside these conferences, but the
general trends give some interesting information. Fig. 2 shows
the representation from the various countries (represented by
the first author).

USA and UK: The two first conferences in London were
initiated by pioneering efforts from individuals and orga-
nizations in the USA and UK. Consequently these two
countries dominated the program. The participation from
the USA in the IWA (and its predecessors) ICA conferences
has decreased dramatically after 1977, except for the
Houston conference in 1985. Also the UK participation after
the 1997 conference in Brighton has dropped. The contri-
butions from the two countries have been reduced from 95%
in 1973 to 3e4% at the last two conferences.

Canada presented the first ICA paper in 1985 and has been
well represented since then.

Japan not only had the country a great representation from
the early 1980s until the mid 1990s. Japanese industry made
very impressive contributions to the progress of instru-
mentation and control and were highly visible in the inter-
national conferences.

Asia outside Japan was noted very little until ICA (1990) in
Kyoto. During the last ten years Korea has made significant
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
progress and the Asian papers contributed to around 20% in
2009.

Europe, excluding UK in 1973 only 2 papers were coming from
Europe outside UK. Since then the European contributions
have been dominating the ICA conferences. Since 1997
between 53 and 62% of the contributions have come from
Europe. The European COST 624/682 programs started in 1992,
provided 12 excellent years of cooperation and made a huge
impact on the joint efforts between many universities. This
has been of great importance for the ICA research in Europe.

Australia was not presenting any ICA papers until the first
paper appeared in at ICA (1990) in Kyoto. At ICA (2009) in
Cairns one out of seven papers came from Australia.
The affiliations of the first authors are shown in Fig. 3.
At the first ICA conference it was obvious that the contri-
butions came from the problem owners; the utilities, the
instrument manufacturers and the plant designers. More than
80% of the papers were presented by these categories. Only
10% of the contributions came from universities. Since then
there has been a dramatic change in style of the conferences.
At the last four conferences, since 1997, academic authors
have contributed with almost two-thirds of the papers. At the
same time we now see much less of the real problem owners,
the utilities and the industrialists. It has become quite
apparent that the focus has shifted from problem driven (as
defined by the “end users”) to methodology driven research.
As noted in my summary of the 2001 ICA conference (Olsson,
2002): “The communication (or lack of it) between control
engineers, water and wastewater engineers, theoreticians and
practical people has been the theme of discussion in all the
ICA conferences since 1973. We have made some small
improvements in this communication, but still we can do
better. At ICA 2001, 40% were non-academic participants and
this looks like a good number. Still, we would like to see more
practitioners at the ICA conferences, so we must reconsider if
Fig. 3 e Participation at the ten IWA-ICA conferences from
different categories of authors (in percent). Only the first
author is shown. Here “industries” are defined as
commercial instrument manufacturers, consulting
companies and commercial research institutions.
1595
they have sufficient incentives to come. Academic people
have several incentives to come. Publish or perish is the rule at
most universities, so results have to be presented, discussed
and compared. There are certainly many obstacles to imple-
ment great ideas in full scale, and many academic people can
not afford this effort. The funding agencies ask for quick
results and PhD students have to finish on time. . Some of the
implementation aspects may be more perspiration than
inspiration. Consequently, this kind of work is not sufficiently
rewarded in the academic systems. . A winewin situation
has to be created. The consulting engineer can only be moti-
vated to attend a conference if he or she can pick up results
that can be quickly turned into profitable business. Such
a reality has to be recognised. How do we meet? . The
manufacturer has to look for new customers. Typically the
university departments are not the most profitable customers.
. So, the potential customers have to have a reason to come
to the conference.” During recent years some good ‘practical’
workshops have been created, for example at WEFTEC and at
the modelling conferences WWTMod and have given reasons
for ‘customers’ to come. More of this kind is needed for future
ICA conferences.
The conference topics:

Instrumentation was considered crucial for any progress in
the 1970s and 1980s. This was also reflected in the confer-
ence contributions. Since then there has been a huge
development of on-line sensors and naturally a lot of the
product development has taken place in industry. Instru-
mentation for control has no longer the focus at the
conferences. Instead we see more control contributions
based on advanced nutrient on-line measurements.
However, still there is no standardized way to check data
quality for on-line instruments, even if a lot of progress has
been made.

Modelling: The phenomenal computer development has
been a major driving force for all of ICA. Within the IWA
publications the most obvious sign is the development of
modelling and simulation. Modelling based on first princi-
ples was not in the main flow of papers in the early ICA
conferences. Control was based on empirical models or
models achieved via process measurements and identifi-
cation. The presentation of the ASM1 model (see 5.1) meant
a major step towards more complex model development. At
the last ICA conferences almost 20% of all the papers were
devoted to modelling and simulation, Fig. 4. On top of that,
dynamical modelling progress has been presented at related
IWA conferences, like Watermatex and AutMoNet and
WWTmod. It is safe to say that modelling is soon becoming
a dominating theme. One very significant area is the
benchmarking efforts, see Sec. 9.

Data acquisition and monitoring: This field has developed
tremendously. The first papers were more on data handling,
error corrections and basic signal filtering. The idea of
applying parameter estimation and process identification in
wastewater treatment appeared first in the 1970s and the
estimation methods have been gradually more sophisti-
cated. Again, it is a matter of ensuring data quality, and
there is room for much more data screening and monitoring
in water and wastewater applications.
1596 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
Fig. 4 e The number of modelling papers at the ten IWA
conferences on ICA.

Control. The presentations on control methods and control
implementations have all the time been around 30e50% of
all the papers. However, it is instructive to look in more
detail what types of contributions that have been made.
This is further commented below.
4. Sensors and actuators
No process control application can perform better than the
quality of the measurement data. In wastewater treatment
there are many sensors considered standard, such as pH,
pressure, flow rate, DO and MLSS that only require minimum
maintenance. Other sensors, such as NHþ  3
4 , NO3 , and PO4 ,
include more advanced analysis and have to be maintained
and checked due to specific quality maintenance programmes
to ensure the measurement quality.
Some aspects of on-line instrumentation for control need
to be emphasized:

Instrumentation e including sensors, analysers and other
measuring instruments e is no longer the bottleneck for the
control of wastewater systems. However, it has to be kept in
mind that the measurements all the time have to be quality
checked. Still there is no general standard how to check on-
line sensors, and it is important to realize that a control loop
depends on every single value from the sensors.

On-line measurements can never be used for control
without adequate data quality check. Thus instrumentation
always has to be combined with adequate data screening,
measurement processing and more or less sophisticated
feature extraction from the measurements.
Also, a poor performance of an actuator can destroy the
result of the best control method, as discussed in 4.3. Then
there is another risk connected with the control of wastewater
treatment. A more efficient system is often driven to the
effluent limits. Consequently, if a sensor fails, there is an
inherent danger to violate the effluent limits. Controlling
a plant will increase the efficiency but will reduce the safety
margins. This has to be considered in all operations, and some
aspects are further discussed in Sec. 12.
4.1. On-line sensors
In the early 1970s it was considered that the main obstacle to
develop control and automation in wastewater systems was
the lack of adequate sensors, especially field instrumentation.
A lot of attention was given to on-line instrument develop-
ment during the first ICA conferences. Some common strategy
had to be worked out how to further develop on-line sensors
and to define which parameters were of primary interest for
control and automation. The sensors offered for wastewater
control appeared to be those developed for other industries
and were not really suitable for the usually hostile conditions
of wastewater processing. It was recognized that plant
performance had to be assessed continuously. However,
variables like dissolved oxygen, conductivity and turbidity
were considered reliably measurable and many new instru-
ments for flow rate, suspended solids, organic matter,
ammonia and nitrate were presented. The developments re-
ported indicated that the commercially available probes for
measurement of ammonia and nitrate ions could be used for
this purpose, provided they could be maintained at constant
temperature and buffers and suitable standards were added at
appropriate time intervals (Briggs, 1973).
Many instruments had been tested only in lab or pilot scale
environments and the necessary robustness of the instru-
ments was often lacking. In the mid 1970s there were on-line
COD instruments available, but they required huge amount of
maintenance work. Even more importantly: the operators had
only vague ideas how to use the information from the sensor,
so many people gave up the idea of applying this kind of
analytical instruments. It is obvious that any instrument has
to have a purpose. If this is not recognized by the operating
and maintenance personnel, then the interest to keep the
sensor calibrated and running will quickly fade away. The
initial difficulties with the advanced instruments created a lot
of suspicion about such equipment and may have caused an
unnecessary delay in the application of advanced devices,
when improved instruments became available in the market.
Aeration is of course a key operation, and consequently DO
sensors were considered particularly important. Commercial
DO sensors were used on a routine basis already from the
early 1980s as a basis for control. Still, as noted in Ingildsen
et al. (2002a) and in Jeppsson et al. (2002) DO control was far
from fully utilized in the early 2000s. The instruments
required to measure nutrient concentrations were either
unavailable or considered too unreliable to be used in prac-
tical applications. However, developments during the last two
decades have changed that (Table 1) and increased confidence
in instrumentation is now driven by the fact that clear defi-
nitions of performance characteristics and standardised tests
for instrumentation have become available (ISO 15839:2003).
However, still many manufacturers do not seem to be ready to
follow the ISO standard (Rieger, 2011).
Next to the more common measurements there are also
other instrumentation available for control, such as respi-
rometers, VFA and alkalinity sensors (Vanrolleghem and Lee,
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4 1597

had failed because of the unreliable measurements. Sekine

Table 1 e Commonly used measurements performed by
instrumentation on WWTPs (from Olsson et al., 2004). et al. (1985) demonstrated a renewed interest in using the
ORP as an indicator of nitrification. Wareham et al. (1993) used
Flow rate Conductivity Ammonium
the ORP as an indicator of the nitrate breakpoint. Caulet et al.
Level, pressure Dissolved oxygen Nitrate
Temperature Turbidity Phosphate (1998) presented the successful application of ORP based
pH Sludge concentration Organic matter nitrogen removal control, applied to several small activated
Redox Sludge blanket level Biogas production sludge plants. Cecil (2003) used ORP measurements at the Ejby
Mølle WWTP (300,000 PE), an alternating plant in Odense,
Denmark, to control the denitrification phase. Aeration was
restarted when the redox potential dropped to its low setpoint
2003). As Jeppsson et al. (2002) noted, sensors were no longer
or when ammonium reached its upper setpoint. Similarly
the bottleneck for ICA in practice. However, still the applica-
ammonia measurements were used to control the aeration.
tion of the instrumentation needs a lot of attention to get
When the lower ammonia setpoint was reached the aeration
reliable information. Another major obstacle for good control
would stop. A refinement of the method was described in Cecil
is the lack of plant flexibility and controllability.
(2008).
Standardisation of instrumentation specifications now
Modern, automated wastewater treatment plants depend
makes it possible to specify, compare and select the most
heavily on on-line instruments. Even if instruments are much
adequate instrumentation e not only in technical terms but
better today but they still get fouled or fail. Tools are needed to
also in economical terms through calculation of the cost-of-
work around these disturbances and to correct the sensors. A
ownership (Table 2). The investment costs for the device itself
lot of attention needs to be focused on measurement quality
are often a minor part of the costs during the lifetime of the
checking. In situ sensors for concentrations (optical and ion
instrumentation.
selective sensors) require regular inspection and adjustment.
It took at least a couple of decades to make the instru-
Advanced unit processes, like post-denitrification and filter
mentation wishing list from Clemson (1974) a reality. Nutrient
plants, have plenty of instrumentation and control loops
analysers have developed into in situ sensors, DO sensors are
making decisions based on on-line instruments and have to
now based on the luminescent principle (LDO sensors) and do
work unattended all around the clock. This also requires
not need membranes. It was recognized in the 1970s that the
safety nets for the control as well as fault-tolerant algorithms
sludge blanket height should be a basic control parameter.
and methodologies. The time interval for correction depends
Promising ultra-sonic detectors were under test at that time.
on the type of media to be measured, sensor characteristics,
Today on-line sludge blanket sensors are reliable and used on
measurement range, measurement application as well as the
a routine basis.
sensitivity of the process being measured. The issue of
In anaerobic sludge digestion operation the gas production,
creating a robust system for data acquisition which forms the
gas quality, volatile acids content, temperature, sludge feed
basis for control and decision-making is crucial. Calibration
rate and alkalinity could be measured in the early 1970s. It was
and maintenance requires skilled and motivated personnel.
also recognized that a measure of organism activity was
Still, manual adjustments will simply require too much
required (Bargman et al., 1973). The volatile-acids-to-
operator time with increasing levels of control and instru-
alkalinity ratio related to gas production was considered
mentation. Lumley et al. (2009) and Nivert et al. (2009)
such a measure. A comprehensive review of instrumentation
addressed this issue and presented methods for auto-
in anaerobic treatment can be found in Spanjers and van Lier
adjustment of the instruments at the Rya WWTP, Göteborg,
(2006).
Sweden. This has significantly improved the quality of the
Also the oxidation reduction potential (ORP) may be
control.
a measure of organism condition. However, no reliable on-line
Sensors usually do not give an immediate response, but the
transducers for volatile acids, alkalinity or ORP were available
response time is not known to a lot of people. Obviously this
in 1973. There were indications at various places that the ORP
will create problems for control and is an important part of
might be a near primary indicator of both aerobic and anaer-
any control system (Rieger et al., 2003).
obic activity, but attempts to apply control based on the ORP

4.2. Respirometry

Respirometry was in 1973 considered as “probably the most

Table 2 e Items (and examples) included in the
instrumentation cost-of-ownership calculation (from important primary control measurement for aerobic
Olsson et al., 2004). processes since it can be used to: (a) measure the viability of
the activated sludge, (b) provide food-to-mass (note: today we
Instrumentation Cost of the instrumentation itself
Conditioning Cost of rig, building, pumps, pipes, pre-treatment prefer to call it food-to-microorganism, F/M) control biological
Installation Time costs for project and skilled workers treatment, (c) provide a measure of aeration tank performance
Integration Time costs for programming of data acquisition including how to place aerators, (d) provide a measure of
and control systems clarifier behaviour, and (e) allow waste treatability to be
Consumables Costs of chemicals, power, etc. determined” (William Garber, see Bargman et al., 1973). A
Maintenance Cost of service contract and time costs for
respirometer had been presented by Robert Arthur in 1972
calibration, cleaning, etc.
Spare parts Cost of spare parts
(Arthur, 1972). Fujimoto et al. (1981) outlined a method to use
respiration rate measurements to control the DO
1598 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
concentration in a reactor. A number of measurement tech-
niques and instruments were subsequently developed. There
was a great confusion about the principles of respiration and
the various respirometers described. Some of this confusion
had to do with the location of the instrument in the process
and others with the interaction between the respirometer and
the treatment plant. This situation created a need to make an
extensive study of respirometric principles and their appli-
cations in wastewater treatment control. Peter Vanrolleghem
(Vanrolleghem and Verstraete, 1993; Temmink et al., 1993)
and Henri Spanjers (Klapwijk et al., 1993; Spanjers et al., 1993,
1994) had extensive experiences of respirometry. They were
using different respirometry measurement principles, and
they initiated a systematic comparison of the methods
(Spanjers and Vanrolleghem, 1995). Within the IAWQ (the
predecessor of IWA) we joined in a Task Group in 1993 with
the mission to write a Scientific and Technical Report on the
subject. The work in progress was presented in Spanjers et al.
(1996). The final report, Spanjers et al. (1998a), presented all
possible aspects of respirometry and its application for
control.
The respiration rate can be determined in various parts of
the activated sludge system (Spanjers et al., 1999).
Vanrolleghem et al. (1999) described the estimation of
parameters in activated sludge models using respirometry.
The Respirometry Task Group produced a second Scientific
and Technical Report (Copp et al., 2002) where a wide range of
control strategies was evaluated, using respirometry as a base
for feedforward/feedback control. Most of these schemes are
only tested in simulation. Respiration as an early warning
system is an attractive application, for example to detect
toxicity upstream or to determine the influent biodegradable
organic substrate concentration. Full scale use of respirometry
for toxicity protection has been applied in industrial
processes. A nice example is found in Vanrolleghem et al.
(1994). Another application of toxicity detection in hospital
wastewater using respirometry is presented by Vanrolleghem
et al. (1996a).
As remarked in 2.4 it was recognized early that the whole
aeration basin could be used as a respirometer. Based on the
DO mass balance this seemed to be a straightforward task.
The DO concentrations could be measured in the influent and
effluent and the saturation concentration was assumed to be
known. However, the oxygen transfer rate KLa as a function of
the airflow rate is not static, so it is not trivial to calculate the
respiration rate. While the respiration rate r is variable on
a minute-to-minute time scale the KLa function is slowly
variable. Both parameters have to be estimated. The respira-
tion can be estimated only if KLa is known and vice versa.
Using the short time scale the time-variable r could be
calculated, assuming that KLa was known. Likewise the KLa
was calculated by disturbing the airflow by identification
experiments, as was indicated earlier. Goto and Andrews
(1985) estimated the respiration rate on-line using DO and
airflow measurements. The procedure was made in two steps.
First the oxygen transfer rate (KLa) was estimated, and based
on this result the oxygen uptake rate was calculated. A further
development of estimation of the respiration, using a more
sophisticated filtering algorithm was made by Lindberg and
Carlsson (1996a). They also considered the case when the
DO sensor dynamic can not be neglected. In the estimation
scheme the time varying respiration rate was modelled by
a filtered random walk model, and the nonlinear KLa function
was modelled with an exponential model. A numerical study
illustrated the advantage of the method and real data were
applied to the software sensor with promising results.
A new problem appeared if the respiration was to be esti-
mated under closed loop DO control. Then the airflow rate is
determined by the DO controller. The closed loop makes
identification much trickier. Under no control the relationship
between the airflow and the DO concentration will identify
the DO dynamics. Under closed loop control the same data
may as well identify the dynamics of the DO controller. This
problem was solved by Holmberg et al. (1988), and it was
shown that both the KLa and the respiration rate could be
calculated on-line while controlling the DO concentration.
This meant that we could track the development of the
respiration rate on-line. Carlsson (1993) developed a new
estimator for the respiration rate that can be used during
normal closed loop control of the dissolved oxygen. The esti-
mation takes place in two parts. In the first step a model of the
oxygen transfer rate KLa is estimated from a data set. The
nonlinear KLa function is modelled with a static, constrained,
piecewise linear model. Once the KLa has been found in the
first step the respiration can easily be calculated from the DO
and airflow measurements.
Despite the great expectations already in the 1970s control
based on respirometry never took off. There are many
proposed controls, but most of them are never implemented
in full scale. My own interpretation is that current sensor
technology for DO and nutrients are adequate for feedback
control. Still respirometry is a viable method for in-stream
early warning systems.
4.3. Actuators
It was recognized early that actuators may limit the ability of
control, for example by having a too low maximum or too high
minimum capacity. This is probably the most fundamental
barrier for more widespread acceptance of new control strat-
egies, and many existing wastewater treatment plants are not
designed for real time control. The ability to adjust the control
handles in a continuous way is also of paramount importance
to get a smooth and varied control, e.g. by using variable speed
electric drives.
In one small industrial plant (in Sweden) it was desired to
perform DO control since the DO levels were far too high. We
tried to figure out how to control the DO, and it soon appeared
that there was no point in trying any control. The plant was
supplied with three on/off compressors and at our evaluation
only one was used and the DO concentration was extremely
high. An average of about a half compressor capacity would
have been sufficient. As I was staying at the side of the aerated
reactor, located underground, I asked the operator to turn on
all the three compressors, just to satisfy my curiosity. The
result was impressive. As the aerated water surface rose
quickly and soon reached the floor I started to run to the exit
of the underground chamber. This is the only time I have been
panicking at a wastewater treatment plant!
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
A municipal plant (in the USA) was supplied with four on/
off compressors. The average air requirement would be
adequately supplied by around 0.6 compressors. In still
another plant DO control was meaningless due to the design
of the primary pump. This on/off pump was so much over-
designed that it needed to be turned on only five minutes per
hour to pump the influent. As a result a huge hydraulic shock
upset the plant once an hour, causing difficult settling prob-
lems. No DO control or step feed control system could ever
compensate for this poor pump design.
We once performed DO concentration identification
experiments. The airflow setpoint was manually changed from
the control panel, but absolutely nothing happened with the
DO concentration as a result of the setpoint changes. It took
some time to discover that the butterfly airflow valve had got
stuck. It appeared that the valve was connected via
a mechanical link to a pneumatic actuator. The link went
through the fence around the reactor. However, somebody had
mounted a net in the fence so that the link could not move!
Often valves are poorly designed for control. One problem
may be their nonlinear behaviour. Another problem is that
their operating range for control is only a fraction of the range
of the valve. This makes the control difficult and inaccurate.
This is discussed in more detail in Olsson and Newell (1999,
Ch. 24). In one plant experiment we tried to control the
influent flow rate based on the sewer level measurements by
using the large influent flow valve. The operating range of the
valve was about 1 m, but the interesting range was limited to
about 0.02 m around the operating point at 0.2 m. In other
words, the control action was very inaccurate and difficult.
5. Modelling efforts
An adequate process understanding is crucial for all control
and automation. All modelling efforts should have in mind
what Albert Einstein once noted: “Make everything as simple
as possible, but not simpler”. Over the years we have seen
various kinds of models developed and a lot of efforts have
been spent to better understand the mechanisms and
dynamics in biological nutrient removal, anaerobic digestion
as well as in clarification and settling. One class of models is
aiming to encapsulate the knowledge of the processes,
substrates and organisms involved. Another class of models
has been developed to be the basis for control actions. A model
is an abstract representation of the real world and it is used to
support decision-making (Daigger, 2011). Therefore the
usefulness of the model does not depend on its completeness
but on its usefulness to support any decision-making, for
design, for control and for operation.
5.1. Activated sludge reactor models
In the 1970s significant progress in modelling and under-
standing activated sludge dynamics was made by the group
lead by Professor John F. Andrews, first at Clemson University
and later at the University of Houston and Rice University in
Houston. The activated sludge process for organic removal
was operated using three control actions: the return sludge
flow rate, the waste sludge flow rate and the aeration rate. A
1599
fourth control action was presented by Busby and Andrews
(1973), step feed control, based on the results from the PhD
thesis by Busby (1973). The idea of step feed control was not
new, and Bill Torpey had already in the 1940s shown that
changes in the contacting patterns are effective in the control
of sludge bulking (Torpey, 1948). Busby and Andrews now
examined the possible benefits of using step feed control
based on a dynamic model and computer simulations of the
process. The step feed model had to incorporate the storage
capability of the sludge and also the active and inert fractions
of the MLVSS were needed to develop the control strategies. A
model for the aeration basin was coupled with a dynamic
model of the final clarifier. Noteworthy works on activated
sludge models were done by Busby and Andrews (1975), and
Stenstrom (1975). We presented a first approach to a model
library in 1985 (Olsson et al., 1985b) as an attempt to find
a standardized way of describing and simulating complex
wastewater systems. Different modules of reactor descrip-
tions for C and N removal could be combined with various
modules for settlers and clarifiers. The systems were simu-
lated on a general purpose simulator Simnon. The fast
development of commercial wastewater system simulators
soon made our own library obsolete. The first version of the
GPS simulator was presented by Patry and Takács (1990) and
actually contained some of the “Olsson models”.
Since the 1970s there has been a remarkable development
of activated sludge models. One sign of this activity is the
number of “model papers” at the ICA conferences, mentioned
earlier. Several other groups outside the ICA Specialist Group
are working on modelling. Researchers in biological nutrient
removal and anaerobic processes have made outstanding
progress and given us a better understanding of the processes.
A series of inspiring seminars on modelling were held in
Kollekolle, Denmark, the first one in 1985 under the leadership
of Paul Harremoës. Two new workshops have now been
organized in the same spirit, this time in Mont Sainte-Anne,
Quebec, Canada, the 1st and 2nd IWA/WEF Wastewater
Treatment Modelling Seminars (WWTMod) in 2008 and 2010,
respectively.
The presentation of the Activated Sludge Model no 1
(ASM1) in 1985 (Henze et al., 1987a,b) was a true landmark,
also for ICA. The subsequent models for the activated sludge
process (Henze et al., 1995, 2000), for anaerobic processes
(Batstone et al., 2002) and for biofilm processes (Eberl et al.,
2006) have all contributed to encapsulate the knowledge
about the mechanisms and the dynamical behaviour of the
various processes. The impact of the models has been
phenomenal. Modelling has developed from a pure research
instrument into a commercially valuable and widely used
tool. The models have been used for design as well as
a representation of the “true” plant to test various control and
operational strategies.
The ASM1 model gave new insight into the dynamical
behaviour of the activated sludge model with both carbon and
nitrogen removal. However, the ASM models are not directly
identifiable from on-line measurements (Holmberg, 1982;
Jeppsson and Olsson, 1993; Jeppsson, 1996; Julien et al., 1998),
which means that simpler models have to be derived to form
the basis for control actions, for example model predictive
control. However, the ASM models have other important uses
1600 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
in connection with control. Even if the model is uncalibrated it
is favourably used to test various control structures (which
sensor to connect to which actuator) as well as control algo-
rithms. The numbers may not be completely correct but as
long as the answers are in the right order of magnitude and
the rates of changes are correctly simulated a lot of under-
standing can be obtained. Then, in the final implementation of
the controller we need calibrated models for the controller
tuning and action.
ASM models have been used to interpret data from respi-
rometric and titrimetric measurements. Incoming readily
biodegradable COD and nitrogen have been estimated and
nitrifier activity and specific growth rate could be estimated.
Some of these results are reported in Gerneay et al. (1997,
2001), Yuan et al. (1999) and Yuan and Bogaert (2001). Unfor-
tunately I have seen very little of this approach in full scale
operation.
There is a temptation to make models increasingly
complex as our knowledge of basic mechanisms increase. As
Gujer (2011) pointed out, the complexity of models has
increased exponentially parallel to the increased capacity of
computing power. However, too often we have mixed up
complexity with accuracy. It is not guaranteed that adding an
extra equation into the model will increase the accuracy.
Naturally a more elaborate model will be useful for other
purposes, such as getting a better understanding of the qual-
itative behaviour and the internal couplings of a complex
system. However, there is always the risk that we trust the
models too much.
5.2. Clarifier and settler dynamical models
The focus on modelling has been on the reactors. However,
many people realized early that the two stages e substrate
oxidation and separation of the biological floc from the
liquid e must not be dissociated. The first strategies sug-
gested for control of the settler were simple proportional
controllers (Busby and Andrews, 1973). The wasting rate Fw
was defined by
Fw ¼ Fw0 ðz  z0 Þ
where z is the sludge blanket height and Fw0 and z0 are
constants. If the sludge blanket is lower than z0 then the waste
sludge flow rate is set to zero. This strategy prevented that
suspended solids were lost in the clarifier effluent. However,
too large quantities of solids were wasted.
Using another strategy the return sludge flow rate Fr was
controlled based on sludge blanket measurements z:
Fr ¼ Fr0 þ KF ðz  z1 Þ
where Fr0 is a constant flow rate, KF a constant parameter and
z1 a constant sludge level defined for the plant. If the blanket
height was less than z1 then the return sludge flow rate was
set to Fr0.
The standard design method for clarifiers and settlers was
based on the static zone settling assumption. In the mid 1970s
attempts were made to develop dynamical models for the
settler unit, in particular by PhD students of Professor John
Andrews. Mike Stenstrom (now professor at UCLA, Los
Angeles, California) developed a one-dimensional model of
the settler, using the zone settling theory (Stenstrom, 1975). It
is assumed that the layers below the feed are subject to zone
settling and that the compression takes place in the bottom
slice. The key assumption for the hindered settling is to
assume that the settling velocity is a decreasing function of
the local sludge concentration, according to the popular
assumption by Kynch. Common models for the settling
velocity below the sludge blanket are of the form:
vi ¼ C1 eC2 xi
where vi is the settling velocity, xi the sludge concentration,
and C1 and C2 are constants.
In the early 1980s very little progress had been made on
structured dynamical models for clarifiers. Such a model
should relate the dynamic performance of the effluent sus-
pended solids as a function of the flow rate and the concen-
tration variations. Still the floc formation had a major
influence on the clarifier behaviour. Most common was the
empirical static relationship suggested by Pflanz (1969),
stating that the effluent suspended solids content is approx-
imately proportional to the solids flux to the solidseliquid
separator:
Q þ QR
xe ¼ K x
A
where xe is the effluent suspended solids concentration, x the
MLSS concentration, K a constant, A the clarifier area, Q the
influent flow rate and QR the return sludge flow rate.
We performed identification experiments in 1975e1976 to
explore the dynamics of the clarifier performance in the
Käppala wastewater treatment works in Stockholm (Olsson
and Hansson, 1976b), illustrated in Fig. 5. The influent flow
rate was manipulated in order to create changes in the
effluent suspended solids concentration. In order to get
a more accurate description of the relationship to the MLSS it
would have been desired to manipulate the MLSS
0.6
Wastewater flow rate m3/s
0.4
2000
0.2
1900
MLSS mg/l
0 Sec. effluent susp. solids mg/l (1/500) 1800
0 100 200 300 400 500
Time minutes
Fig. 5 e Illustration of the dynamical relationship between
influent flow rate, MLSS and the effluent suspended solids
concentration. The experiment was performed in the
Käppala wastewater treatment plant in Sweden. The
effluent suspended solids concentration behaves like
a first order dynamical system for changes in the flow rate.
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
independently of the flow rate, but this was not possible.
Instead, any change of the influent flow rate caused
a changing concentration of the MLSS.
As a result it was found that a first-order dynamical model
could describe the relationship between the flow rate and the
effluent concentration. The model with the flow rate as input
had about the same accuracy as the model with the flux
(Q þ QR)$x as input:
 
dxe 1 Q þ QR
¼  xe þ K x satisfactory. The physical process will never behave like the
dt T A
where the time constant T was found to be of the order 55 min
and K was determined to 0.06. Typical published K values were
0.08e0.1. It should be emphasized that the purpose of the
model was not to get a general predictor for the effluent
concentration. The sludge blanket influence was not taken
into account. Still the model described that the relationship
between the flow rate and the effluent concentration was
dynamic in nature. The most important lesson from these
early experiments was that the influent flow pumping has to
be as smooth as possible. Any sudden changes e like the ones
created by on-off pumping e had a detrimental impact on the
effluent quality. We made further pilot clarifier studies in the
1980s at the Wastewater Technology Centre, Burlington,
Ontario, Canada (Olsson and Chapman, 1985). By dynamic
experiments and parameter identification we found that the
effluent concentration depended on both the flow rate and its
time derivative when the flow rate increased. For a decreasing
flow rate the best model was a simple first-order model of the
flow rate related to the effluent concentration.
Vitasovic (1986, 1989) further developed the secondary settler
model to include the clarifier. He suggested a double exponential
form of the flux model, later adopted by Takács et al. (1991),
 
vi ¼ C1 eC2 ðxi xI Þ  eC3 ðxi xI Þ
where the Ci are constants and xI represents the fraction of
solids that will not settle at all. The first exponential term
represents settling and the second exponential term repre-
sents clarification. The approach to describe the solids
concentration profile in one dimension, both above and below
the feeding point, is still used in a lot of settler modelling
(Jeppsson et al., 2006). A number of models have been devel-
oped as refinements of Vitasovic’ work (Takács, 2008). Recent
efforts to improve secondary settling tank models are pre-
sented by Plósz et al. (2007, 2011), De Clercq et al. (2008),
Abusam and Keesman (2009), David et al. (2009a,b). Still much
remains to be done. For example, we do not have a full
understanding of the relationship between the activated
sludge flocs and the settleability of the sludge. As Gujer (2011)
remarks: some hydraulic phenomena may be wrongly
explained by adjusting biokinetic parameters. This is an
example of the consequences of structural errors (see 5.4) that
are wrongly compensated by parameter adjustments.
5.3. Numerical solutions of the clarifier and settler
dynamics
The basic assumptions of the solidseflux theory yield a mass
balance in each vertical layer of the settler, which leads to
1601
a nonlinear partial differential equation that models the
process. In the late 1980s and early 1990s we simulated the
one-dimensional clarifier/settler models and got some
confusing results. It appeared that the position of the sludge
blanket may “jump” suddenly between two levels. This
problem had been recognized by Vitasovic (1986) and he
simply added an extra condition in the model that the
concentration in the settler had to increase towards the
bottom. From a modelling point of view this was not very
numerical solution of the model equations. Something must
be missing.
I decided to discuss the problem with the mathemati-
cians. There must be a proof that there exists one unique
solution to the settler equations. I have to admit that I was
apprehensive to approach the professors Lars Hörmander
and Lars Gårding at Lund University, both of them celebrated
authorities in partial differential equations. My problem may
be just trivial. However, it appeared that they liked the
challenge and professor Gunnar Sparr engaged himself in
this problem area and found a good student, Stefan Diehl.
Actually, quite new results in nonlinear partial differential
equations had to be used to find the proof. Already in his
master thesis Stefan Diehl described the problem and found
a good outline of the solution (Diehl et al., 1990). He proved
that it is sufficient to describe the settling velocity as
a function of concentration just as a concave function with
no specific analytical description. In continuous settlers
there is a discontinuity where the feed flow enters the
settler. This presents particular problems to be treated in
a strict mathematical way. In his subsequent PhD thesis
(Diehl, 2001). Diehl described robust algorithms to solve the
settler equations. This has lead to a series of publications
giving a sound mathematical framework to the settler
equations. Key results are summarized in Diehl and Jeppsson
(1998), Diehl (2011) and Diehl and Farås (2011). The beauty of
the results is that they show what properties that the model
needs to have in order to describe the actual phenomenon.
From an academic and model building aspect this is an
important result. It does not change the understanding of the
settler behaviour, but provides a better foundation for
modelling efforts. A core result of the papers by Bürger et al.
(2011a,b) is that the model equations can produce approxi-
mate solutions that converge to the exact solution as the
discretization is refined.
5.4. Modelling uncertainty
A model of our understanding of phenomena and can never be
more accurate than the measurements allow. There are many
factors that will contribute to model uncertainty (Olsson and
Newell, 1999), such as

Measurement inaccuracy: Calibration errors, sensor noise,
sampling time, sensor location, analytical technique;

Process noise: Non-ideal mixing, external disturbances;

Parameter values: Many of them are difficult to estimate,
such as growth rates or transfer rates. Time varying prop-
erties demand continuous updates;
1602 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4

Structural uncertainty: are all relevant components repre-
sented, such as filamentous organisms and higher
organisms?

Mode changes: as a result of new phenomena, like sludge
bulking.
We can note that some of this uncertainty can be elimi-
nated with further knowledge and research. Other kinds of
uncertainty will always be there, for example the varying
composition and concentration of the influent water.
How do we take the consequences of uncertainty into
consideration? The designer mostly compensate for the
uncertainty by adding a safety factor in the design. The
control engineer needs to compensate in another way.
Uncertainty means that the prediction of various variables is
not perfect (Beck, 1987). As a consequence the control actions
usually become more cautious. A cautious controller will have
a smaller gain so that the desired process variable will need
a longer time to reach the final goal. Control under uncertainty
or stochastic control is a special field of control theory where
the uncertainty and disturbances are modelled explicitly.
Another area of great interest is robust control, where the
uncertainties are implicitly included in the control design. If
the control system can tolerate a wide spectrum of distur-
bances and uncertainty, then the control is robust (Flores-
Alsina et al., 2008). Vanrolleghem and Gillot (2002) presented
an interesting evaluation of control strategies by adopting
a robustness index to the control. A Task Group on Design and
Operations Uncertainty was formed within IWA (Belia et al.,
2009). The attention of the group is on uncertainties in
model-based decision-making for wastewater treatment
plant design and operation. Uncertainties have to be
expressed more explicitly. Even if safety factors will remain as
parameters in the design process they may hopefully become
more specific. To tackle some of these problems a dozen
researchers met in November 2010 to discuss different ways of
handling uncertainties in different water disciplines
(Vanrolleghem et al., 2011).
6. Data analysis and monitoring in
wastewater systems
To measure is to know but information needs to be properly
extracted from the measured data. Measurements are used for
decision support, for early warning of disturbances and
process changes, for tracking interesting and relevant
parameters as well as for the basis of control actions.
Measurements from the instrumentation shall be available
24 h a day and 7 days a week. However, even reliable instru-
mentation can fail during operation, which can have serious
consequences if the instrumentation is used in closed loop
control (see 4.1). Therefore real time data validation is needed
before using measurements for control purposes. Corrupted
measurements must be found and corrected, so that false
conclusions based on the measurements are avoided. The
components of a plant decision-making system are shown in
Fig. 6. To track the current process operational state via the
instrumentation is called monitoring.
ACTUATORS PROCESS MEASUREMENT
ADVICE DIAGNOSIS DETECTION
Fig. 6 e Decision-making process (from Olsson and Newell,
1999).
We have noted for a long time that these components have
traditionally all been implemented by plant-operating
personnel using intuition and heuristics developed often
subconsciously from their experience. A lot of ICA research
has addressed this problem from a systematic point of view. A
challenge is to document the experience in the control
computer in such a way that the operating personnel may use
the information in a consistent way and to save the knowl-
edge gained by experienced operators.
6.1. Data acquisition
During the 1970s and early 1980s there were hardly any
publications in the wastewater profession showing methods
for data screening and measurement verification. However, in
the control society many methods were well established and
were applied in the early computer control installations
(Gillblad and Olsson, 1977). An early paper explicitly
addressing this issue for wastewater treatment was Kanaya
et al. (1985). Almost all measurement series is affected by
some problems like missing values, noise or outliers. Then
each signal has to be analyzed with respect to its amplitude,
mean value, deviation from normal situation, rate of change,
trend, and variability.
Wastewater systems are relatively slow systems. Still,
when disturbances appear in the plant it may be quite difficult
to dampen their effect. Therefore early warning systems are
asked for. At the conference ICA (1993) in Hamilton, Canada, it
was predicted that this area would gain interest (Olsson, 1993)
and over the last few years there has been a significant
increase in the interest of detection and isolation of
disturbances.
6.2. On-line parameter estimation
In Sec. 2.3 we discussed off-line identification as a means to
understand the dynamics of a wastewater treatment system.
It was also used to detect changes in the process and in
sensors. In many cases the investigation of individual signals
is insufficient and can not reveal the true state of the process.
Variables influence each other and one must often look at
several variables simultaneously. On-line instrumentation
made it possible to track the performance of a plant and find
out key parameters that could indicate the state of the oper-
ation, if the plant was in a “normal” operating condition or in
some kind of extreme condition. The control actions may be
quite different in these cases. The immediate challenge was to
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
find out how models could be identified from the on-line data,
and model reduction was a natural ambition.
Using on-line calculation of mass balances for process and
sensor verification was well established in chemical process
control. Of course this could be used also in wastewater
treatment. For example, calculating the MLSS mass balance in
the reactor could verify if the MLSS and the return sludge
suspended solids measurements were consistent. Estimation
of the respiration was discussed in Sec. 2.3. By using the
information of the airflow rate and the DO concentration the
respiration in the reactor could be estimated. Below we
discuss some of the key parameters that could be estimated
on-line.
6.2.1. Estimation of the clarifier behaviour
The identification experiments for the clarifier dynamics
(Olsson and Chapman, 1985) mostly resulted in models of the
structure
ce ðtÞ þ a1 $ce ðt  DtÞ ¼ a2 $Qðt  DtÞ
where ce is the effluent concentration and Q the feed flow rate
to the clarifier. We got good indications that the parameters ai
could be updated recursively:
ai ðt þ DtÞ ¼ ai ðtÞ þ KðtÞ$½ce ðtÞ  ^ce ðtÞ
The real measurement ce is compared with the effluent
concentration ^ce predicted by the model. If the predicted value
was close to the measurement, then no correction was made.
When the difference between measurement and model was
significant then the a value had to change. This indicated
changing settling behaviour. In the end we were disappointed
to find out that this recursive method was not sufficiently
reliable to detect settling changes. The quality of the
measurements was simply not sufficiently good.
6.2.2. Estimating nitrate concentration
The nitrate concentration was estimated in real time by Cecil
(2004) based on a dynamic model that is a subset of the ASM1.
The DO, ammonium and redox concentrations were
measured on-line in the aerated reactors. The model used
these measurements to continuously adjust its values for the
influent ammonium concentration, the nitrification rate, the
denitrification rate and the net hydrolysis. Then it computed
the nitrate concentration with an updated value every 10 s.
The estimation schemes were used at two full scale activated
sludge plants and showed satisfying agreement between the
model values and the output of in situ nitrate measurements.
An application of estimating the nitrate concentration in
a post-denitrification unit of the Viikinmäki WWTP in Helsinki,
Finland is described by Mulas et al. (2011). The control of
methanol dosage is usually based on the on-line measurement
of the nitrate concentration in the filters. The authors describe
the development of an array of soft sensors for real time esti-
mation of nitrate concentration. This is used as a back-up
software system capable of complementing the existing
instrumentation if an instrument failure should happen and
provide a more robust control system. Different kinds of
multivariate techniques (see 6.3), both linear and nonlinear,
were applied with great success, where the estimated accuracy
was of the same order as the real nitrate sensor.
1603
6.2.3. Using soft sensors for sensor diagnosis
As on-line instrumentation becomes increasingly important
for operating modern wastewater treatment plants it is
necessary to have diagnostic methods that can indicate
sensor deviation at an early stage. At the Rya WWTP (Lumley,
2002) soft sensors have been used to verify instrument read-
ings. This includes on-line mass balance calculations, which
will present a calculated measurement that can be compared
with the real measurement. Another example is the calcula-
tion of effluent total P based on effluent turbidity. Still other
calculations include estimation of flow rates based on
changes in levels.
6.3. Monitoring
Multivariate analysis is a way to detect patterns of the oper-
ation. Large data sets of m variables can be considered as
a data “cloud” in an m-dimensional space. All the measure-
ments at one instant make up one point in the cloud. Many of
the variables are usually correlated, since most of them reflect
some underlying mechanisms that drive the process in
different ways. Therefore the true dimension of the cloud is
usually much less than m. By projecting the data cloud on
a lower dimension space it is often possible to find key vari-
ables. In the simplest case with two variables, a regression line
or curve can represent both of them. Multivariate analysis had
been used for many years in the chemical process industry,
but was introduced into the wastewater industry in the late
1990s (Rosen and Olsson, 1998). Under normal operating
conditions the cloud is limited within a certain volume. If
some variables are changing the cloud will move outside this
volume and an operator can readily detect that something has
happened. In principle he will get an automatic detection not
only that a single variable has exceeded the permitted
amplitude, but the combination of many signals have crossed
an alarm limit. Now the analysis allows backtracking the data,
so that the real physical signals that caused the deviation can
be identified. Each one of the variables may have changed
within permitted limits, but the combination of their devia-
tions has caused an alarm.
The first challenge is to find a method to project the data
into a smaller space. The second one is to find out what is the
boundary of a “normal” cloud. In other words, how do we find
a suitable method to calculate this boundary. For a single
variable we may define one or two sets of alarm limits. For the
collection of many signals this “alarm limit” has to be more
sophisticated (Rosen, 2001).
The most well-known method to reduce the dimension-
ality of the data cloud is Principal Component Analysis (PCA).
It is simple in the sense that the data can readily be projected
into a small dimension. However, PCA methods are insuffi-
cient to deal with data that are highly variable, such as
influent flow rates and compositions. Furthermore, the wide
range of time constants in a wastewater treatment system
makes it difficult to look at correlations of data in just one time
scale. Adaptive PCA can handle this kind of challenges, while
multiscale PCA decomposes the measurement data into
different time scales using wavelet transforms. Having done
that a PCA can be used to monitor each time scale. These
1604 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
methods were applied for monitoring wastewater treatment
data by Rosen and Lennox (2001) and Lennox and Rosen (2002).
Different operational states can be represented by different
locations in the multivariate space. The data points can be
identified as being in various clusters with different centre
points. Clustering methods can be used to define to what
extent the current data point belongs to a predefined class.
Here is an obvious application of fuzzy logic when the
boundaries between the clusters are uncertain or when some
regions are not covered by a class. Fuzzy boundaries also
provide a means to seamless transitions between classes
(Rosen, 2001).
The multivariate methods have been successful in many
applications, but have been much less useful in others. Rosen
et al. (2003) provided a description and insight why some of
these methods have failed and also gave guidance how to
adapt the use of the methods for wastewater treatment
operations. Some of the specific challenges in wastewater
treatment monitoring have to do with poor data quality and
reliability. Nonlinear relationships between variables are also
present. The multivariate methods have often been applied as
if the system is static. All these challenges have to and can be
addressed in order to obtain a successful monitoring. PCA has
also been used in sequential batch reactors for monitoring
(Villez et al., 2008; Lee and Vanrolleghem, 2003) and as a basis
for control of the phase length (Villez et al., 2010).
6.4. Knowledge-based systems
In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a great interest in
knowledge-based systems, often called expert systems. They
were too often used to replace control algorithms written in
mathematical terms and the ambition was also to provide the
operator with some advisory system. Several papers on this
theme were presented in the 1990 ICA conference. The
expectations of the expert systems were often exaggerated
and the results did not show any improvement in plant
performance compared to conventional feedback controllers.
The reason was simply that the performance was limited by
the knowledge of the process dynamics and the measure-
ments, not by the algorithms. Similar unrealistic expectations
of expert systems were also noted in other applications in
industrial control. Knowledge-based reasoning systems are
instead justified on higher levels of control in plant-wide
control systems, discussed in Sec. 11.
7. Leakage detection and localisation in
water distribution systems
Over the years I have been more involved in the operation of
wastewater treatment control than in water supply system.
However, one area of great interest has been leakage detection
and localization. Water utilities around the world lose
between 25% and 50% of treated water to leaks. Still many
water companies spend far too little effort to develop early
warning systems to detect leakages. Water is still too cheap in
many places. However, the American Water Works Research
Foundation states that the inspection and assessment of
water pipelines is perhaps the next “big” issue facing utilities
in North America. In Europe, the new European Council
Directive 98/83/EC is pushing water companies to improve the
condition assessment and continuous monitoring of trans-
mission mains in order to safeguard the security of supply to
customers.
We started research on automatic leakage detection and
localization in the mid 1990s. When a burst appears then
a transient pressure wave develops. If the pressure can be
measured with a high frequency, around 500 Hz, then the
leakage can be localized. Interestingly enough, the wave
equations are identical to the electro-magnetic equations that
appear in a power line as a result of a shortcut. So, results from
electrical power systems inspired us for leakage detection in
water pipes. If the resistance from a power line to earth is zero
it means that all the current leaves the power line. Then the
position of the shortcut can be determined accurately. Simi-
larly, if there is a 100% leakage then the transient method can
localize the leakage relatively accurately. On the other hand, if
the resistance is greater, indicating that only a fraction of the
current is going to earth, then the precision of the localization
becomes less accurate. The same conclusion is true for
a water pipe: if only a fraction of the water leaves the pipe
then the precision of the localisation will be lower.
A large number of leak detection and location techniques
have been applied in real systems or have been described in
the literature, and a detailed overview is found in the PhD
thesis by Misiunas (2005). Some of the existing techniques are
designed for just detecting leaks and are not capable of
locating them while others are developed specifically to locate
leaks. Other methods are capable of both detection and loca-
tion. Together with the Univ. of Adelaide and the research
group under Professor Angus Simpson we got a unique
opportunity to take part of their great experimental facilities
for leakage detection and localization. A periodical leak diag-
nosis system that can be implemented on water transmission
pipelines is presented in Misiunas et al. (2005). The technique
is based on the transient response difference monitoring. The
leakage detection technique can also be applied for detecting
other hydraulic faults, such as blockage or entrapped air
pockets. The performance of the failure management tech-
niques has been evaluated based on: (1) the minimum size of
the failure that can be detected and located, (2) the precision
of the derived location, and (3) the detection and location time,
i.e. the time from the actual failure to the time when it is
detected and located. A major application of this technique is
in main pipelines of transmission systems. At the cost of
installing a single pressure monitoring point, sudden bursts
can be detected and located at any point along the pipeline
with an impressive accuracy. The burst monitoring technique
offers an immediate reaction to potentially hazardous pipe
ruptures. Losses associated with pipe failure can be reduced
significantly if the monitoring system is installed.
A burst can be detected and located not only in a single
pipe, like a transmission system, but also in a water distri-
bution network (Misiunas et al., 2006). The technique is based
on the real time continuous monitoring of network inflow at
the entry point of a district metering area (DMA) part of
a network. The pressure is measured in a few locations within
the DMA. Thus, the burst is detected and located directly after
it occurs and the isolation time can be minimized preventing
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
the large losses associated with the pipe failure. This
approach is designed for medium-to-large bursts with
opening times in the order of a few minutes and is suitable for
networks of relatively small size. The flows and pressures in
the network are simulated off-line using the EPANET
(Rossman, 2000) steady-state hydraulic solver. A sensitivity-
based sampling design procedure is introduced to find the
optimal positions for pressure monitoring points. The burst-
induced increase in the inlet flow rate is detected using
a change detection test. Based on parameters obtained from
this test, the burst is simulated at a number of burst candidate
locations. The changes in pressure at the pressure monitoring
points obtained from the off-line simulations are then
compared to the measured values and the location resulting
in the best fit is selected as the burst location. The proposed
burst detection and location technique has been demon-
strated to be most promising. In a recent paper Quevedo et al.
(2011) have applied a similar leakage localisation method
based on the pressure measurements and pressure sensitivity
analysis of nodes in a water distribution network.
8. Process control in wastewater treatment
In the 1973 London conference a majority of the control
systems were presented by the problem owners, the utilities,
and some real solutions were presented. Most of them were
quite empirical and some of them have been commented
above. Some of our early experiences were summarized at
a productive workshop at Asilomar, California in early 1976
(Olsson, 1977). However, already at the 1977 ICA conference
some of us were impatient, as documented by Beck (1977). One
aspect was to stress the importance of the overall system
under discussion, i.e. the whole urban water cycle. Another
aspect was the difficulties in the communication between
control engineers and water and wastewater professionals.
Watts and Evans (1985) made an excellent summary of four-
year work on the introduction of ICA in a large wastewater
treatment plant. They described some of the instrumentation
experiences, the computer system and the developed soft-
ware. At the 1993 ICA conference, Troy Vassos (1993) outlined
a number of potential performance problems which could be
addressed through improved ICA technologies, such as:

Modelling/simulation software, which can incorporate real
time data, to assist in operation training and evaluation of
process control alternatives;

Expert system software tools to incorporate qualitative
information into the control loop and aid in data
interpretation;

Instrumentation and sensor developments to provide reli-
able information for use in control loops.
We have seen a phenomenal development of modelling
and software. The expectations of expert systems were too
optimistic, but today we have developed a lot of data analysis
and fault detection methods to make maximum use of sensor
information. The instrumentation development has been
commented above.
1605
To define the ultimate goal of wastewater treatment
control is by no means trivial. Of course the effluent quality
must be satisfactory, and the energy and resource utilization
has to be minimized. However, the ability to handle distur-
bances has to be taken into account, and the relation between
plant design and operation can not be neglected. In
Vanrolleghem et al. (1996b) a general framework for the
formulation and analysis of an overall decision support index
was discussed. It was indicated that such an index allows
evaluation of the combined effects of both design and opera-
tion (i) during the planning phase of new WWTPs, as well as
(ii) for the evaluation of new operational strategies versus
traditional expansions of plants already in operation. The
index has to include such factors as plant flexibility and
robustness against failures.
8.1. DO control revisited
The first experiences of DO dynamics and control were
described in Sec. 2. Since the 1970s a huge amount of effort
has been spent to improve DO control. As already pointed out,
there are many factors that will determine the success. The air
diffusers have to allow variable airflows along the reactor and
the airflow rates in various zones along the reactor have to be
separately controlled on-line. The compressor has to allow
that the total airflow can be varied in a smooth way. A well
functioning DO control is the pre-requisite for satisfactory
nutrient sensor-based control.
Some of the early experiences of DO control were described
in 2.3. In Japan DO control had been implemented at the
Mikawashima Sewage Works (Iwaki et al., 1977; Ohto et al.,
1977). The DO concentration at the outlet part of the reactor
was fed back via a PI controller to the airflow control valve. No
cascade control was being used (cf. 2.4). Consequently the
controller had to include the nonlinear characteristics of the
butterfly control valve. An 18% reduction of the airflow valve
was obtained, while the DO concentration was kept within
4  0.3 mg/l. Also Sørensen (1977) showed significant energy
savings of 23e28% as a result of DO control at a pilot plant in
Copenhagen, Denmark. Other implementations had a step-
by-step adjustment of the blowers based on the DO concen-
tration in one of the aeration tanks. A comprehensive DO
control scheme was presented by Bracken and Flanagan
(1977), including a cascaded control of the DO concentration,
feedforward calculation of the desired airflow, and a cascaded
control system for the inlet guide vanes of the blowers.
Lindberg and Carlsson (1996b) developed a strategy for
designing a nonlinear DO controller. The basic idea was to
take the nonlinear oxygen transfer function into account in
the controller design. Such a nonlinear DO controller would
outperform a standard PI controller, which was confirmed in
a pilot scale plant experiment.
In 1984 we got the opportunity to implement DO control in
all the six parallel basins of the Käppala wastewater treatment
plant, described in 2.3. It was realized that the controller
tuning should adapt to various loads. The KLa function
increases with the airflow rate but for higher loads the slope of
the KLa curve will flatten. This means that a controller would
need a higher gain at big loads compared to low loads. These
and other aspects of DO control are explained in detail in
1606 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
Olsson and Newell (1999) and Olsson et al. (2005). To solve the
problem of varying control we implemented a self-tuning
regulator (Olsson et al., 1985a). This controller all the time
compared the control action (the airflow) and the response in
DO concentration and continuously adjusted the parameters
of the controller so that the DO would be kept as close as
possible to the desired setpoint. Initially we formulated
a controller of fourth order in order to allow a maximum
flexibility of the controller. After some time of operation it was
found that the controller parameters converged to a much
simpler controller. In fact the controller resembled a simple PI
(proportional-integral) controller with a variable gain. From an
academic point of view this showed the necessary complexity
of the DO controller. The results were later verified by
Ingildsen (2002) at the Källby municipal plant in Lund. In
Käppala we also applied the “most open valve” strategy. The
compressor will keep a prescribed pressure in the air system.
For a given pressure it is required to keep a certain air valve
position in order to produce the required airflow rate. From an
energy point of view there is a power loss across the valve, if it
is not fully open. Therefore, the pressure setpoint was
controlled so that the most open valve of the parallel channels
was almost fully open. This saved a few additional percent of
aeration energy.
The controller complexity is not the only factor that
determines the success of DO control. The sampling rate is
crucial. It is a common misunderstanding that small sampling
interval will provide a better control. A typical response time
from a change in the airflow to the DO concentration is of the
order 15e30 min. However, the DO concentration can change
much more frequently as a result of mixing phenomena and
oxygen uptake rate variations. Unfortunately there is no
theoretically satisfactory solution how to choose the sampling
interval for a control system. It has to be “sufficiently” short so
that the initial continuous signal can be reconstructed from
the time discrete measurements. Still, if the controller tries to
change the airflow every minute as a result of DO concentra-
tion changes the resulting control will be poor. The controller
is simply trying to track changes that can never be compen-
sated in the fast time scale. Typically a sampling interval of
about 3e5 times shorter than the smallest significant time
constant is a good choice. For the plant with about a 30 min
time constant of the DO dynamics this indicates that a good
sampling interval for the air flow changes should be of the order
8e12 min. However, the DO concentration ought to be
measured much more frequently. This will allow the DO
measurement values to be filtered before the DO signal is sent
to the controller. At a plant visit in 2008 we were shown a poor
DO control performance with wide swings of the DO concen-
tration. The sampling interval was only 1 min. By a simple
change of the sampling rate to 10 min the performance of the
DO control became satisfactory and more than 10% of the
airflow could be saved. This means a lot of money when the
plant is serving one million people.
With the development of nutrient sensors it has been
possible to extend the DO control to allow for an on-line
adjustment of the level of oxygen supply. For a recirculating
system it means that the appropriate DO setpoint can be
determined by on-line ammonia measurements (Ingildsen,
2002; Ingildsen et al., 2002c). Vrec ko et al. (2006) presented
three different structures of DO controllers, implemented in
a pilot plant and using information from ammonia sensors.
All controllers were simple PI controllers.
Note that DO sensors are still used. The ammonia
concentration controller is in cascade with the DO controller,
which in turn is in cascade with the airflow rate controller.
From a theoretical point of view it would be sufficient to have
just the ammonia sensor and a (complex) controller acting
directly on the airflow valve or the compressor speed.
However, this would be a very unreliable and too complex
control solution. The reason that the cascade solution is
superior is that the implementation is easier and the robust-
ness is better. In this cascade the three control loops work in
different time scales with the airflow control being the fastest.
This guarantees good performance.
8.2. Control of unit processes in activated sludge
systems
We will now look at the most common control loops in the
activated sludge process. It should be noted that a majority of
the controllers are simple controllers, typically of a PI type. An
interesting record of the theoretical basis and the main results
obtained during the development and full scale experimental
validation of a new supervisory control strategy for a full scale
wastewater treatment plant was described in Ayesa et al.
(2006). Eight years work on model simulation, pilot plant
experiments and full scale validation were described.
8.2.1. Nitrogen removal control
One of the very early works on nitrogen removal control was
presented by Nielsen et al. (1981). The plant was operated as
an alternating plant (Bio-Denitro). The lengths of the phases in
the alternating process and the oxygen setpoint were used as
control variables, based on measurements of ammonia,
nitrate and oxygen. The results were impressive, and the
effluent concentrations of ammonia and nitrate could be
reduced by around 50%, compared to the uncontrolled case.
8.2.2. Nitrate recirculation control
The nitrate recirculation flow rate has long been identified as
a manipulated variable (Londong, 1992; Olsson and Jeppsson,
1994) and ought to be controlled on-line in a pre-
denitrification plant. The goal of the recirculation control is
to ensure that nitrate is present throughout the anoxic zone.
Ideally the nitrate concentration at the outlet of the anoxic tank
should be low but non-zero. Yuan et al. (2002b) derived the
conditions for a simple but robust controller. This was later
tested in full scale at the Källby plant in Lund (Ingildsen, 2002).
Actually, the anoxic zone was big enough to consume all
nitrate. The on-line measurements of nitrate and phosphate in
the plant remain one of those happy and exciting moments in
the profession. As the nitrate was consumed in the anoxic zone
we could monitor how the phosphate concentration immedi-
ately took off. Theory was working in practice!
8.2.3. Return sludge control
The return sludge flow rate can seldom be used for control on
an hour-to-hour basis. Basically there are two common prac-
tices for the return sludge flow rate, constant flow rate or ratio
control, i.e. the ratio between the return sludge flow rate and
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
the influent flow rate is kept constant. The traditional control
schemes do not calculate how the reactor concentration varies
or how the settling conditions change. In Olsson and Newell
(1999) we had an extensive discussion on return sludge
control with the many constraints that have to be considered.
Monitoring the sludge blanket height in a secondary clar-
ifier is an important measurement for return sludge control.
The sludge blanket height in the clarifier should be controlled
dynamically. For a dry weather inflow, the sludge blanket
should be reduced prior to the arrival of high nitrogen loads
(e.g. morning peaks), and be allowed to build up as soon as the
high load is over to treat the nitrate peak using denitrification
under the sludge blanket. Maintaining a relatively high
blanket in the settler at nights and over weekends signifi-
cantly improves nitrate removal, primarily due to the recy-
cling of the readily biodegradable COD, which is released by
anaerobic hydrolysis under the sludge blanket, from the
settler to the anoxic reactor. However, the solids retention
time in the settler should be limited in order to avoid excess
denitrification in the settler, which causes sludge to rise due to
nitrogen gas bubbling, or to avoid significant phosphorus
release. During heavy rainfall or storm events, the sludge
blanket should be controlled and solids loading to the settler
should be minimized. All these aspects were considered by
Yuan et al. (2002a) and they designed a two-level controller to
implement the above control strategy.
Lynggaard-Jensen et al. (2010) extended the methods to the
fact that most wastewater treatment plants have several
secondary clarifiers. In practice it is a well known stumbling
block to obtain an equal distribution of the load to the each
clarifier. If the problem is neglected then it is obvious that the
capacity of the clarifiers is not used. Furthermore the return
sludge is often too large and too variable, which results in
a varying and too low suspended solids concentration in the
return sludge. Lynggaard-Jensen et al. (2010) approached the
solution in two steps. First the total return sludge is calculated
and then the distribution between the clarifiers is performed.
Sludge blanket measurements are key ingredients of the
control schemes.
8.2.4. External carbon dosage rate
The goal of the control strategy of external carbon dosage is to
maintain a low nitrate concentration in the anoxic zone by
controlling the external flow rate of the carbon source.
Lindberg and Carlsson (1996c) derived an adaptive carbon flow
rate controller for a pre-denitrifying pilot scale plant. The
results of the control showed that the nitrate concentration
could be kept close to a desired setpoint. During the experi-
ment the carbon flow rate was automatically varied to keep
the nitrate concentration at a constant low-level. From the
experiences it was obvious that a low effluent nitrate
concentration using an excessive carbon flow rate is hard to
achieve without an automatic control strategy. Yuan et al.
(1997) achieved similar results on a full scale wastewater
treatment plant.
In her PhD thesis Ingildsen (2002, Section 8.3) proposed
a control structure for external carbon dosage control. The
control of external carbon has to be coordinated with the
internal nitrate recirculation. The carbon dosage all the time
has to be minimized to save costs. The system consists of three
1607
controllers, where each one of them is a simple PI controller. It
is the structure of them that makes the system innovative. One
controller manipulates the internal flow rate so as to maximize
the use of the anoxic zone for nitrate reduction. The second
controller manipulates the carbon dosage in order to satisfy the
effluent limits. The third controller adjusts the effluent total
inorganic nitrogen setpoint depending on the effluent crite-
rion. So far only simulation studies have shown that the
controller is performing well.
Yuan and Keller (2004) studied the integrated control of
nitrate recirculation and external carbon addition for a pre-
denitrification biological wastewater treatment system. The
control structure consisted of four feedback control loops,
which manipulate the nitrate recirculation and the carbon
dosage flows in a highly coordinated manner such that the
consumption of external carbon is minimised while the
nitrate discharge limits (based on both grab and composite
samples) are met. The control system used the measurement
of the nitrate concentrations at the end of both the anoxic and
the aerobic zones. Distinct from ordinary control systems,
which typically minimise the variation in the controlled
variables, the actual control system essentially maximises the
diurnal variation of the effluent nitrate concentration and
through this maximises the use of influent COD for denitrifi-
cation, thus minimising the requirement for external carbon
source. The proposed system had not yet been implemented
in any full scale system.
8.2.5. Chemical dosage control
Chemical precipitation processes for P removal are a lot faster
than the biological reactions and can be assumed to occur
instantaneously when compared to the time scale of the
variations in wastewater flow rate and composition. As
a result a disturbance can quickly be dealt with through
feedback control. With a phosphate sensor in place, excellent
control performance can be achieved using a simple feedback
controller. Ingildsen (2002) performed feedback control
experiments for post-precipitation at the Källby plant. The
retention time in the flocculation chamber is short, typically
around one hour. This is considerably smaller than the time
constant of the variation in influent load of phosphate to the
chemical step. Hence, it was convenient to control the phos-
phate precipitation by means of feedback control based on an
in situ phosphate sensor located in the effluent of the floc-
culation chamber. The influent phosphate concentration to
the chemical step varied from about 1 to 3 mg/l, while the
target value was 0.5 mg/l. The amount of dosage chemicals
could be decreased by more than 35% comparing a flow
proportional dosage to a feedback-based dosage. The payback
time for a phosphate analyzer was consequently very small, in
this case less than half a year. With today’s sensor prices the
payback would be considerably shorter. Also Devisscher et al.
(2002) reported successful control of the chemical dosage for P
removal using on-line phosphate measurements.
8.3. Microbial population optimisation as a result of
control
Typical for all control of wastewater treatment is that macro-
scopic tools (such as valves, compressors, motors, pumps) are
1608 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
used to change flow rates and concentrations. This will influ-
ence the microscopic behaviour and the various metabolisms
of microorganisms. It is apparent that a close cooperation
between engineers and microbiologists is of great importance
to further understand the impact and the potential of control.
For example, it is obvious that DO control will affect not only
the DO concentration in the short time frame but also the
microbial population in the long run. Consequently it is
insufficient to consider the short time horizon but a good long-
term performance has to be guaranteed. This can be done by
optimizing the microbial community and the properties of the
sludge. This was recognized by Yuan and Blackall (2002) that
proposed that sludge population optimisation should be added
as a new dimension to the control of biological wastewater
treatment. Three important aspects of microbial population
optimization were emphasized by the authors:

Selecting the most desirable species for a specific function:
Different species possess different growth properties and
possible tolerance to stress arising from disturbances to the
plant. There is an incentive to try to obtain the species with
the most desirable properties. This is particularly relevant
for nitrifiers.

Controlling the growth of unwanted or undesirable microor-
ganisms in the system: In biological nutrient removal it is of
great interest to control the growth of nitrite-oxidising
bacteria (NOB) and glycogen accumulating organisms
(GAOs). In the absence of NOB nitrogen removal would occur
via the nitrite pathway NHþ -
4 /NO2 /N2 with much lower
carbon source demand for the denitrification and oxygen
demand for the nitrification. In enhanced biological phos-
phorus removal (EBPR) systems, the GAOs have been iden-
tified as unwanted organisms.

Optimising microbial properties: There is strong evidence that
the same organisms may have different kinetics and/or
stoichiometry when different operational conditions are
provided. The growth kinetics as well as the yield coeffi-
cients of the microorganisms selected should be optimised
in process operation and control.
The NOB could be eliminated from the activated sludge
using aeration length control in intermittently operated
systems and DO control in continuous flow systems. Nitrogen
removal via the nitrite pathway was first implemented in the
SHARON process (Single reactor High activity Ammonia
Removal Over Nitrite) as reported by Hellinga et al. (1998). The
process was particularly interesting for nitrogen removal from
wastewaters with a low C/N ratio. Nitrogen removal from
wastewater via nitrite was obtained using aeration phase
length control in a sequential batch reactor combined with
step feed of wastewater (Lemaire et al., 2008). Aeration was
switched off as soon as ammonia oxidation was completed. A
fraction of the wastewater that the SBR received over a cycle
was added to facilitate denitrification. The end-point of
ammonia oxidation was detected from the on-line measured
pH and oxygen uptake rate (OUR). Ma et al. (2009) investigated
the nitrogen removal from domestic wastewater via the nitrite
pathway in a continuous wastewater treatment plant by
controlling the DO concentration. Aeration control can not
always readily be achieved using a DO sensor as the DO level
required is often lower than what can be reliably measured by
a DO probe. Instead a pH probe has been used to control the
pH in a narrow range using aeration.
Glycogen accumulating organisms (GAOs) are a bacterial
group capable of competing with polyphosphate accumu-
lating organisms (PAOs) for anaerobic VFA uptake in EBPR
systems. Like PAOs, GAOs take up VFAs anaerobically and
convert them to poly-b-hydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). However,
GAOs do not perform the anaerobic P release and aerobic P
uptake transformations of PAOs, and hence do not contribute
to P removal. There are indications that pH is an important
factor that affects the competition between PAOs and GAOs
with a higher pH being more favourable for PAOs. The exact
mechanism is not entirely clear. The growth of GAOs can be
minimized through pH control. An excellent review of some of
these microbial population optimisation methods is given by
Yuan et al. (2008).
8.4. Control of anaerobic digesters
Anaerobic digesters (AD) are nonlinear and highly dynamic
systems. The advantages of AD are obvious: formation of
useful by-products such as biogas and a humus-like slurry
suited for soil amendment. Still the AD process frequently
suffers from process instability. In the early 1970s the oper-
ating practice consisted only of sets of empirical rules and the
need for control strategies was recognized early by John F.
Andrews et al.. John, together with his PhD student Steven
Graef, developed a dynamical model of the AD process
(Andrews, 1969; Andrews and Graef, 1971) that was applied in
computer simulations to test various control actions (Busby
and Andrews, 1973). It was well recognized that the model
and the control strategies were not complete but were
considered of qualitative value for both the digester design
and operation.
The most apparent measurements were: volatile acids
concentration, pH, alkalinity, gas flow rate, and gas compo-
sition. At this time there was considerable speculation as to
which variable, or combination of variables, would be the best
indicator of impending digester failure. Graef and Andrews
(1974) showed that this depended on the type of overloading
of the digester. The control variables available included
a temporary halt or decrease in the feeding (variable speed
drives were not considered at this time!), addition of a base
such as lime, or dilution of the digester content. Andrews and
Graef recognized that one of the best control actions for the
prevention of failure by an overload of toxic materials was the
recycle of concentrated sludge from a second stage digester
using the rate of methane production as a feedback signal.
This kind of control action had been proposed already in the
1930s (Buswell, 1939). In the 1950s Bill Torpey proposed ways
to increase the maximum feed rate which a digester can
handle. From pilot plant studies (Torpey, 1955) he demon-
strated that stable operation can be attained at residence
times as low as 3 days, while design criteria in the 1970s called
for residence times in the range of 20e30 days. It was obvious
that applying control in AD systems could result in substantial
reductions in the required volumes of new digesters and
permit existing digesters to meet increased demands without
required plant expansion.
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
The highly dynamic character of the AD process becomes
apparent as the process is operated close to its maximum
capacity. As a consequence, linear time-invariant controllers
are not adequate. To bring the process towards maximum
biogas production while ensuring stable operation at a high
organic loading rate will require a more advanced control. In
recent years there has been a lot of research and development
on monitoring and control of the AD process. Various control
strategies have been proposed, notably by Steyer et al. (1999),
Liu et al. (2004), Alcaraz-Gonzáles et al. (2005), Bernard et al.
(2005), and Lardon et al. (2005). J.P. Steyer has written an
excellent overview of control of AD processes in Chapter 7 of
Olsson et al. (2005) and in Steyer et al. (2006). In particular
Steyer describes an innovative work on interval-based
control. In our research (Liu et al., 2006) we found that the
controller itself and the control structure can be quite unso-
phisticated in the sense that a variable gain controller can
achieve great improvement of the operation. The system
efficiency is maintained while process stability is ensured.
8.5. Other control strategies
One of the key challenges is to formulate the goal of the
control. In this section we will describe some strategies that
have been used in activated sludge control to formulate such
goals.
8.5.1. Hedging point strategy
One challenge in industrial automation is to adjust the
production level so as to keep the most profitable inventory.
There has to be a compromise between the cost for customer
waiting time (which would require producing “a little more”)
and the cost for storing unsold products. This is called
a hedging point strategy (Olsson and Rosen, 2005). In a waste-
water treatment plant the objective can be formulated as
a weighted sum of cost of operation and effluent quality.
Hedging control can be applied in wastewater treatment plant
as a way to be able to reject future event disturbances, such as
large variations in the ammonium load, drop in temperature,
the presence of toxic/inhibitory compounds in the influent etc.
Hedging is a risk minimisation tool, with the aim to “reduce
one’s risk of loss on a bet or speculation by compensating
transactions on the other side”. In wastewater treatment plant
operation hedging can be applied by choosing a higher level of
ammonium removal to increase the amount of nitrifiers, thus
ensuring a safety margin of nitrifiers in the system. This is
a sensible way to introduce disturbance rejection ability into
a multi criterion performance index. In practice, this is done by
deciding upon an internal effluent ammonium criterion. Some
results based on simulation studies using the ASM1 model
were reported by Ingildsen et al. (2002b).
8.5.2. Controlling extreme events
As discussed in 6.3 an extreme operational state can be
detected, for example by multivariate analysis and sometimes
by direct observation of only one variable such as extreme
flow rates. Rosen et al. (2002) presented a framework for
extreme event control based on the fact that different opera-
tional conditions manifest themselves as clusters in a multi-
variate measurement space. A reduced system model is
1609
assigned to each type of extreme event and used to calculate
appropriate local controller setpoints by using steady-state
and dynamic predictions. The performance of a relatively
simple steady-state supervisory controller is compared with
that of a model predictive supervisory controller.
8.5.3. Fuzzy control
Wastewater systems are not only nonlinear and time-variable
but some aspects are generally ill defined, such as microor-
ganism conditions and visual observations. They can not
easily be modelled by equations, nor even be represented by
straightforward logic such as if-then-else rules. This is the
background against which Lotfi Zadeh developed the fuzzy
logic in the 1960s. The name fuzzy is a misnomer since the
logic is firmly grounded in mathematical theory. An operator
may be readily controlled by humans without recourse to
mathematical models, algorithms or a deep understanding of
the physical process involved. The operator generates quali-
tative actions or responses to given situations that are loosely
parameterized by the operating conditions as well as by their
perceived experiential “model”. Fuzzy logic can be regarded as
a control methodology that mimics human thinking by
incorporating the uncertainty inherent in all physical
systems. Strangely enough fuzzy logic did not appeal very
much to Western researchers, despite the fact that Zadeh
lived in the USA. However, Japanese control people were eager
to adapt to the methodology. In discussions with colleagues
from Japan I found that the fuzzy logic is well suited to mimic
the Japanese language, while our Western languages often
wish to express events much more crisply. Fuzzy control
applied to wastewater treatment was taking off in the 1990s,
and the Hitachi Research Laboratory in Japan made note-
worthy contributions. Watanabe et al. (1993) applied fuzzy
logic for image processing of microscopic flocs and Enbutsu
et al. (1993) applied fuzzy control to recognize and to control
an activated sludge plant under a wide range of operating
conditions. Many other researchers have used fuzzy control to
operate relatively well-defined processes. If a dynamical
model can be defined to describe the system it can be shown
that the fuzzy controller is nothing else than a nonlinear
conventional controller. Somewhere the control action based
on the fuzzy rules has to be “defuzzyfied”, which means that
the rule has to be translated to a sharp action.
9. Benchmarking control systems
Most controllers and control structures reported have been
suggested based on simulation studies or pilot scale plants. To
compare two different controllers in a large plant may be
a very difficult task. The plant conditions are often quite
variable. One controller may have been used during the winter
and the other one during the summer. Operator experiences
may have improved between the test periods. These kinds of
conditions motivated to develop a benchmark simulation
platform that could be used as a test bench for various
controllers and control strategies. The idea of benchmarking
was brought up by Bengt Carlsson, Sweden at the ICA
conference in 1993. This was a direct inspiration of efforts
made by the Control System Society in the USA with control
1610 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
applied to flight control systems. The idea was adopted by the
Respirometry Task Group and the first ideas on benchmarking
were presented at the next ICA conference in 1997 (Spanjers
et al., 1998b). The effluent criteria were already published in
Vanrolleghem et al. (1996b) and the benchmarking ideas were
presented in Spanjers et al. (1998a).
The work with a benchmark system for evaluating control
strategies was further developed in 1997 as part of the Euro-
pean COST 624/682 programme (Copp, 2002) and continued as
an IWA Task Group under the leadership of Ulf Jeppsson, Lund
University. The group has been working during the last decade
and developed a platform to be used for all kinds of tests of
controllers (http://www.benchmarkwwtp.org). The useful-
ness of the models BSM1 and BSM2 e based on the Activated
sludge models (Henze et al., 2000) and the Anaerobic Digester
model no 1 (Batstone et al., 2002) e has been illustrated by
more than 300 papers based on these platforms. The BSM2
model (Jeppsson et al., 2007; Nopens et al., 2010) is a plant-
wide model, including both wastewater treatment in the
activated sludge model and sludge treatment in thickeners
and anaerobic digestion (Rosen et al., 2006a).
The benchmarking platform has been used not only for
control system testing but also for monitor algorithm testing.
Like the testing of control methods there were no objective
way to compare the success of proposed monitoring methods.
Many monitoring methods had been validated on plant
specific data that were not available for others. Often this data
sequence was too limited in time. Work was initiated in 2003
to create an extension of the BSM1 model and an approach
was presented by Rosen et al. (2004a). The time horizon had to
be extended and a realistic set of both external influent water-
related disturbances and internal disturbances, such as
sensor and actuator failures, were modelled (Gernaey et al.,
2006; Rosen et al., 2008). The Long-Term Benchmark Simula-
tion Model No. 1 (BSM1_LT) was proposed as an extension to
BSM1. An increase of the time horizon from 1 week to 1 year of
the time horizon gave a more realistic framework for evalu-
ation and comparison of both monitoring and control strate-
gies. Recent results of monitoring evaluations can be found in
Corominas et al. (2010).
The simulation models are freely available on several
simulation platforms, both commercial wastewater treatment
simulators (GPS-X, SIMBA, WEST) and for general plat-
forms (MATLAB/SIMULINK) as well as a stand-alone
FORTRAN implementation. Other simulator platforms, such
as STOAT, BioWin, AQUASIM, JASS, SciLab and EFOR,
have also been used for less complete versions of the bench-
mark. The work of the Task Group is getting published in
Gernaey et al. (2011). Still the current BSM systems do not
include all desired features of a system that can be used for
evaluating control and monitoring systems. Jeppsson et al.
(2011) presented a number of possible extensions to the plat-
form, including possibilities for long-term evaluations,
extending the BSM2 model with sewer and receiving water
models and more unit processes within the treatment plant
itself. Already new models for nitrogen removal e notably the
combined SHARON-Anammox process e (Dapena-Mora et al.,
2004), membrane reactors (Maere et al., 2011), and bio-P
removal have been reported (Gernaey and Jørgensen, 2004)
as well as an extended benchmark for greenhouse gas
emissions (Flores-Alsina et al., 2011). Nitrous oxide (N2O)
production in activated sludge systems has received a lot of
interest due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) potential (Porro et al.,
2011). Models from literature were implemented within the
plant-wide BSM2 model to predict nitrification and denitrifi-
cation pathway N2O emissions.
Many control approaches have been tested and verified by
using these protocols:

Feedback controllers of P, PI or PID type (Ma et al., 2006a) and
fuzzy controllers (Ma et al., 2006b);

Feedback/Feedforward control structures (Stare et al., 2007);

Model-based predictive controllers (Zarrad et al., 2004;
Holenda et al., 2008).
Only few practical implementations of advanced control-
lers in full scale WWTPs have accompanied the benchmark
efforts (Ayesa et al., 2006). To complete a full scale imple-
mentation the control algorithm design has to be combined
with suitable instruments and actuators, other parts of real
time software, such as measurement databases, data
screening and filtering, parameter estimation as well as
a multitude of practical aspects.
10. Control of water supply systems
Most of the ICA development has taken place in wastewater
treatment systems, and the control and automation of water
supply systems did not have the same kind of urgency in the
early conferences. No water supply paper was presented in
the first ICA conference in 1973. In all the following confer-
ences drinking water supply has been a minor topic in
competition with wastewater treatment. Still, as remarked by
van Schagen et al. (2010) there are some features of a drinking
water system that need to be particularly considered:

The production flow has to be controlled according to the
consumption of drinking water.

The buffer capacity in the treatment plant is mainly used to
level the daily consumption pattern.

There is no possibility to discharge any off-spec water; all
water that is produced must meet the water quality criteria.

Due to the tight coupling between the unit processes the
quality control becomes a plant-wide control problem.
In the 1977 ICA conference 6 out of 95 papers considered
instrumentation and monitoring in water supply systems.
Typically, measurements in surface waters of DO, tempera-
ture, redox, pH, conductivity, chloride, and ammonia-N were
applied. A feasibility study was made in the UK (Fallside et al.,
1977) to provide short-term forecasting of consumption and
control of the pumping to obtain a minimum cost of the
pumping operation. A computer control system for the water
supply of Yokohama city, Japan, was reported in Kanbayashi
et al. (1977). Water demand was predicted and the distribu-
tion of water with sufficient pressure and quality was sched-
uled. Furthermore a process computer (Hitachi with 32
kwords core memory and 768 kwords magnetic drum
memory) was used for digital control of the dosage of
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
chemicals in the water treatment plant. Control and operation
of water treatment systems were considered in another three
papers. At the 1981 conference only one paper related to water
supply was presented discussing flow rate measurement
based on ultra-sonic modulation.
Controlling the supply pressure in water distribution
systems was presented already in 1985 (Shimauchi et al.,
1985). The authors developed a method to calculate the best
operating point by applying network flow theory to optimize
the pressures and flow rates in the network based on the
water demand. Based on the obtained desired values a feed-
back control system from the actual pressures and flow rates
adjusted the valves. The system was in operation in Taka-
matsu City in Japan. The progress in network calculations had
simply been possible by the computer development. Then,
another reminder that “nothing is new under the sun”: today
there is a lot of discussion about variable pressure in water
distribution systems. This was already described and imple-
mented in two UK applications in 1985 (Olner, 1985; Parker,
1985). The telemetry systems made it possible to remotely
control the valve settings in water distribution zones. The
valves were adjusted to give minimum working pressure at
the lowest pressure point of the distribution zone. Such
a variable pressure control system resulted in savings in
pumping costs and less leakages. Today the telemetry
systems are replaced by GSM or 3 G mobile telephone
networks for the communication between the pressure
sensors and the remotely controlled valves. Furthermore,
variable speed pumping is a proven technology today and can
provide further energy reduction. An important by-product of
the variable pressure control is the decrease of leakages due to
smaller pressure variations in the distribution network.
Another four papers at the 1985 conference discussed control
of water treatment works. So, out of 120 presentations at the
ICA conference in 1985 there were 7 papers on water distri-
bution networks and another 7 devoted to water treatment
operation.
In the 1990 conference the water supply control was very
little observed, and only a couple of papers discussed control
issues. Four papers out of 57 were devoted to water distribu-
tion at the 1993 ICA conference. In Tamada et al. (1993) a new
method for predicting the water demand was presented. In
the 1997 ICA conference only one paper (Oshima and Kosuda,
1998) focused on the water supply system, presenting a new
method to predict water demand by applying chaos theory (a
variation of fuzzy control). The prediction was used to operate
a water reservoir. Two different control goals were identified.
If the discharges from the reservoir are made according to the
variations in demand, then the water level is allowed to vary.
However, if the reservoir should be ready at any time for
emergencies, then the level has to be kept at a high level all
the time. The control has to balance between the two needs.
The water supply contributions were still in a small
minority at the ICA 2001 conference. Only one paper
describing a water supply system was presented, but no new
control ideas were put forward. Ideas on the design and
operation of pressurized pipeline systems, on water quality
monitoring, and on leakage detection were presented at the
ICA 2005. Van Schagen et al. (2006) provided a new contribu-
tion of control of drinking water treatment plants to the ICA
1611
community. The authors presented a model of the water
treatment plant that would form the basis for control of the
pellet softening process step. The control relies on the
computation of the best possible flow distribution over several
parallel pellet reactors. The control methods were later
implemented in the Weesperkarspel treatment plant in the
Netherlands (van Schagen et al., 2010). Further results on
plant-wide modelling and control were presented by van der
Helm et al. (2009) and new full scale implementations and
further methodology developments are described in Worm
et al. (2011). The results indicated significant savings of
energy and chemicals.
11. Plant-wide control
We have seen several times that it is often not sufficient to
control each unit process in isolation. The decomposition of
complex systems is a convenient way of designing and oper-
ating control systems. But eventually we must step back and
take a helicopter view of the whole plant, or even a larger
system. We may talk about plant-wide, system-wide or inte-
grated control when not only the various unit processes of
a wastewater treatment plant but also the sewer and some-
times the receiving water are included. Whatever size of the
system we have to define its boundaries, so that we can define
external and internal events. Depending on the system size
we will have different degrees of freedom and each system
definition will determine what we can manipulate.
It was recognized already at the first ICA conference (see
2.1) and later documented in Beck (1976) that a plant-wide
perspective has to be applied in order to achieve the highest
possible efficiency in the operation. The operation of the
primary settler will influence the treatment both in the acti-
vated sludge unit and the anaerobic treatment of the sludge.
Chemical precipitation can be performed by dosing before or
after the reactors or in the reactor itself. The many recycles
make the complex couplings obvious, such as the return
sludge, nitrate recycle or the recycling of the supernatant from
the anaerobic digester to the influent of the wastewater
treatment. The interactions demand that we look at the global
effects of the chosen disturbance rejection strategies, with
a particular emphasis on recycle streams (Olsson and Newell,
1999).
The sequential relationship between the sewer, the
wastewater treatment plant and the receiving water is
obvious. For the sewer operation the goal is to minimise the
amount of combined sewer overflow (CSO) (Brueck et al.,
1981; Schilling, 1989). The aim of the control of the WWTP
is to satisfy the effluent requirements while minimizing the
operational costs. During storm conditions these goals may
be difficult to reach. It is obvious that the control of a sewer
system isolated from the WWTP operation will lead to sub-
optimal solutions. If the goal of the sewer operation is to
minimise the CSO, then the WWTP may soon be overloaded.
We made some experiments with primary pumping control
in the 1980s at the Käppala wastewater treatment plants
outside Stockholm. The purpose was to avoid sudden
hydraulic disturbances by equalizing the influent flow rate as
much as possible. However, we soon realized that what we
1612 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
had gained in the flow equalization was lost in the first flush
disturbances, once the flow had to be increased. Another
aspect of the plant-wide approach is to calculate where to
bring the organic material: to minimize sludge trans-
portation, to produce biogas, to make sure that denitrification
is working.
The control of any complex system needs a structure. This
means that the overall goal of the control and operation has to
be defined rather than just develop control loops for each
individual unit process. In the control science a lot of research
efforts have been made to develop methods for plant-wide
control (Larsson and Skogestad, 2000). The controlled and
manipulated variables (control handles) have to be identified.
The possible (and desired) measurements should be found.
Then the structure of interconnecting measurements, set-
points and manipulated variables has to be selected. Finally
the control algorithms (PID, predictive controllers etc.) have to
be chosen. As remarked by Stephanopoulos and Ng (2000) the
plant-wide control problem possesses certain characteristics
that are not encountered in the design of control systems for
unit processes:

The variables to be controlled by a plant-wide control
system are not as clearly or as easily defined as for single
units;

Local control actions in one unit may have long-range
effects throughout the plant. We have seen examples in 8.3;

The plant-wide control problem is significantly more
complex than that for the individual units.
The central issue to be resolved in plant-wide control is the
translation of implicit plant-wide operating objectives to sets
of feedback-controlled variables of individual control loops.
The supervisory control, called STAR (Superiour Tuning and
Reporting), was presented for an international audience in
1993 (Lynggaard-Jensen and Nielsen, 1993) and was commer-
cialized by Krüger AS, Denmark. The system automatically
calculates the setpoints for the individual control loops of the
system. If the supervisory control system is unable to calcu-
late a new setpoint, then the setpoints are kept constant by
the low-level control system. There are five supervisory
control modules implemented in the system:

Phase control: The phase control determines the switching
between the Biodenitro phases as a function of ammonia
and nitrate levels in the biological reactors. The phase
control is coupled to the dissolved oxygen setpoint control.

Dissolved oxygen setpoint: This control and the phase control
serve to match the relative aerated nitrifying and the non-
aerated denitrifying times to the current load of the plant.
The dissolved oxygen setpoint during the aerated phase is
adjusted according to the ammonia concentration level. The
setpoint control is also used to save some carbon for the use
in the anoxic reaction and for the biological P removal.

Pure oxygen addition: During extreme loads the aeration may
not be sufficient and pure oxygen can be added. The control
decision is based on measurements of ammonia, dissolved
oxygen and estimates of the oxygen uptake rate.

Chemical dosage: The metal dosing is a local control loop
based on the phosphate and flow rate measurements.

Return sludge flow rate: The return sludge flow rate is strongly
coupled to its concentration. This control aims at stabilising
the suspended solids concentration in the return sludge
stream and is based on measurements of the suspended
solids and the influent flow rate.
The system has been successful to minimise the effect of
large load variations (Nielsen and Önnerth, 1995). The total
effluent N has been decreased significantly. At the same time
compressor energy has been saved by using up carbon in the
denitrification and the biological P removal. Also the chemical
dosage could be significantly decreased by keeping up the
biological P removal. The results of advanced control have
been remarkable. Based on experiences during 15 years with
about 50 wastewater systems Thomsen and Önnerth (2009)
reported general results of advanced control. Operational
savings are noted as reductions in power consumption for
aeration (5e25%), power consumption for internal flow such
as return sludge and internal nitrate recirculation (25e50%),
dosage of chemicals (20e100%), and dosage of external
carbon, if any (30e100%). Better control can also result in
design improvements: the aeration volume may be decreased
by 10e25% and the secondary settling volume by 25e50%.
The energy issue is another apparent reason to consider
integrated control. In Olsson and Newell (1999), Ch. 14, we
discussed the energy issue in water: “The energy issue will be
increasingly important in the future society. There is a signif-
icant indirect environmental impact due to the use of elec-
trical power, heat and chemicals. Since energy production,
transmission and distribution are related to environmental
consequences, there will always be an incentive to save
energy. Naturally, when comparing various systems for
wastewater handling, the accumulated energy consumption
of the total system has to be considered. This includes
transportation of the wastewater, energy demand for treat-
ment, the use of heat content in the water, and gas produc-
tion. By looking at isolated subsystems from an energy point
of view it is easy to obtain false solutions, and sub-
optimisation has to be carefully avoided.” The energy issue
was, and still is, a major incentive why we have to consider
plant-wide control and operation. We also wrote about the
end user aspect: “A lot of water e and warm water e is used to
keep us clean and healthy. Only a minute fraction of the heat
content of all this water is exploited, for example in heat
pumps. If the heat content could be better utilised in cold
climates in combination with the digester gas, then the
wastewater treatment plants would be energy producers
instead of consumers, for example to supply base heating in
district heating systems.” This is now a “hot” issue indicated
by conferences on Water and Energy. IWA had its first one in
2009 and many other organizations have put a lot of attention
to the topic.
All integration means some kind of compromise. If there
were no interactions, then the individual optimisation of each
subprocess would be the best strategy. In the combined sewer
and WWTP operation the individual system operations are
sometimes in conflict, so the overall goal of minimising the
load to the receiving water has to overrule the individual goals
(Bauwens et al., 1996; Rauch and Harremoës, 1996a; Schütze
et al., 1999). An early approach to integrated control was
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
published by Rauch and Harremoës (1996b). An example of the
compromises between the sewer and wastewater treatment
operation is shown in Table 3. A sewer control to minimize the
sewer overflow may increase the load to the wastewater
treatment plant. This will most probably influence the plant
performance negatively. This was also addressed by Rauch
and Harremoës (1999), Benedetti et al. (2009) and
Vanrolleghem et al. (2005). Since the overall objective can still
not be defined in concrete terms, the operators seem to be
cautious to embark on the idea of integrated control
approaches. In order to make the plant-wide and integrated
control come up on the agenda, we need to focus on a wider
spectrum of problem areas. This includes structuring large
control systems, organising automation structures, and
modularising large control systems. In the survey reported by
Jeppsson et al. (2002) many countries replied that integrated
control might be the main focus, but not until 2010.
Integrated control of sewer and wastewater treatment
plants was announced as one of the key topics in the ICA 2001
conference, yet there were hardly enough papers to cover
a single session. The reason for this became clear during the
conference: groundbreaking theoretical studies have been
made and further theory development is no longer considered
interesting. However, to make the next step and to implement e
at least some part of e control in the total system in reality
proves to be a very tedious task. System-wide control is difficult
since the interactions between the various system units have to
be taken into consideration (Rauch et al., 2002). Tools to handle
various scenarios have to be developed and relevant perfor-
mance indices must be defined. However, a major obstacle
seems to have more to do with data (assessment, management,
and analysis) and administration than with control algorithm
issues.
One distinguished plant-wide approach was presented in
the ICA conference in 2001, by Rodriguez-Roda et al. (2002).
The authors recognized that wastewater treatment plants are
clear examples of complex and multi-faceted environmental
systems. A successful plant-wide control can not be based on
a single technique. Even if control engineering, sensor tech-
nology and computer systems are advanced the integrated
operation of wastewater systems requires more. The authors
defined three operational levels. On the low-level (the PLC
level) all sensor information is gathered and structured into
a database. Here all the unit operations are handled, either by
automatic or manual control. The next level in the hierarchy
Table 3 e Examples of objectives, measurements and control handles for a combined sewer-wastewater treatment system
operation (from Olsson and Jeppsson, 2005).
Partial aim
Sewer system
Minimize upstream overflow

Utilize basins for most polluted
water
Wastewater treatment
To treat as much wastewater as
plant possible during and after rainfall

Reduce hydraulic load and
sludge load in secondary sedi-
mentation tanks
1613
has access to the database to infer the possible operating state
of the complete plant. At this level two knowledge-based
reasoning modules are incorporated. One of them contains
a heuristic knowledge of the process and the other uses the
experience from previous similar and particular operating
situations. The suggested strategies are sent upwards to the
third level containing dynamic simulation software used for
evaluation and prediction. From this level the setpoints of the
unit process controllers are adjusted. The plant-wide control
system had been implemented at a treatment plant (about
130,000 equivalent inhabitants) in Granolles, in the Besòs river
basin of Spain. I was inspired to see this approach. My
conclusion and hope was that plant-wide control would be the
dominating theme in the ICA research and development
during the next ten years (Olsson, 2002). Unfortunately I was
too eager and optimistic. It will take much longer.
The concept of plant-wide control has many interpreta-
tions (Olsson and Jeppsson, 2005). In some sense the infor-
mation between the various unit operations of the plant or an
infrastructure are interconnected. A plant real time computer
will play a key role to make plant-wide control possible. Many
manufacturers and plant operation people refer to “plant-
wide” as the ability to communicate between the plant parts
but this is not what we mean here with plant-wide control.
The integrated computer system, however, gives the neces-
sary information infrastructure for such control. Integration
aims at minimizing the impact on the receiving water, while
ensuring a better resource utilisation. The system resilience is
an important factor. This includes its ability to attenuate
disturbances and reflects its sensitivity to major disturbances
or even purposeful and harmful attacks. In the integrated
approach the ultimate goal is to formulate a criterion for the
receiving water and its ecological quality while satisfying
various economic and technical constraints. There is a great
challenge to relate this performance to the plant effluent and
possible sewer overflow. We need performance measures of
the plant operation that relate effluent quality to the resources
that are needed to obtain it, such as energy, chemicals, and
other material and operating costs. Multi-criteria optimiza-
tion is one avenue and the use of life cycle assessment tools is
another. Much remains to be done, but promising research
has been done, such as the EU research project CD4WC (2005).
Models are being developed to find strategies to calculate the
maximum WWTP loading according to continuous moni-
toring and prediction of the operational state. One example is
Measurements Control handles

Rain
Pumping stations

Levels
Adjustable weirs

Flow rates
Basins

Flow rates (inlet, outlet, return
Recycle flow rates
sludge, recycles)
ATS control (sedimentation

Suspended solids (aeration tanks in aeration tanks)
and return sludge)
Bypass pumping

Sludge blanket
1614 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
maximising the nitrification capacity in the activated sludge
process, depending on the load to the system. Some full scale
results are reported by Rosen et al. (2004b, 2006b).
A plant-wide control system will assume that all the
different unit processes are controlled locally. The interaction
between different parts of the plant is considered by the
computation of suitable setpoints for the local controllers. The
sewer control system will control the flow rate in the various
parts of the sewer system using the information from water
level and flow rate sensors as well as rain gauges. The
coupling between the sewer system and treatment plant
control is achieved when the plant influent flow rate can be
predicted and manipulated.
The goal of integrated control is not to build up increas-
ingly complex ICA systems. Quite the opposite: an ICA system
has to be in a systematic way so as to deal with the intricate
couplings of a complex process. These couplings appear
between competing biological processes, between unit
processes, between fast and slow reactions, between sewer
systems and treatment plants and between the treatment
plants and the receiving water. Integrated control is still in its
infancy. The necessary condition of having a plant-wide
computer information system is often satisfied. Now opera-
tion and control has to take advantage of the system-wide
information and integrate the operation of one unit with
other interacting system units. I still believe that this devel-
opment will take place.
12. Driving forces
At the 1997 ICA conference we summarized the Scandinavian
experiences of operation and control of wastewater treatment
(Olsson et al., 1998). In particular we noted many different
driving forces advancing ICA, confirming what representa-
tives from 14 different countries had expressed at the 1993 ICA
conference (Olsson, 1993). Similar experiences were verified
by other presenters at the conference. Among the technical
driving forces were mentioned:

The advancement of computing power and computer
installations;

The development of on-line instrumentation;

The data acquisition software;

In-plant communication and the establishment of Internet;

The increased plant complexity towards biological nutrient
removal;

The model development.
The economic driving forces had been improved with
a clear interest from the utilities to better utilize the resources.
This means motivations for better DO control, more efficient
chemical precipitation, better use of internal carbon in
sewages for N and P removal, interaction between design and
control as well as unmanned operation during nights and
weekends.
There are apparent driving forces for instrumentation and
control. The primary purpose of ICA is to operate the plant
towards the defined goal despite disturbances. This will make
the operation consistent in the sense that it satisfies the
effluent requirements at all times. Often plant expansions
could be delayed as a result of better control, thus saving a lot of
money. Today the energy issue is more and more emphasized.
The water and wastewater industry is an important energy
user. In a country like Sweden our industry consumes about 1%
of the national electrical energy and in other countries it can be
as high as 5e10%. We should be able to decrease our electrical
energy consumption significantly and save both operational
costs and greenhouse gas emission. In all of this ICA is a key
technology.
12.1. Technical driving forces
There is no doubt that the computer development since the
1970s has been a major technical driving force. Given the
limited core (primary) memory of a computer of the 1970s
most of the real time programming had to be done in
assembly language in order to be memory and time efficient.
Naturally the humanecomputer interface could only have the
simplest graphics. Efforts were made to standardize real time
software but the market for this was still very limited. To store
historical data required careful planning, since a computer
disk still had a size of the order 1e2 Mbyte. Information
technology is now a mature and pervasive technology. Most
treatment plants have several computers installed and the
second or third generation of computer control software is
being used. Still many of these systems are under-utilised in
plant operation outside the data acquisition and the basic
control loops. Off-line computers are generally used for little
more than simple calculations and data visualisation using
spreadsheets and report preparation using word processors,
largely because of the wide familiarity with this software
(WEF, 2011).
New sensor development and more “low-level” instru-
mentation provide large quantities of data. Still the capa-
bility of computers to extract patterns (useful information)
is not commonly utilised past simple graphing. As we have
discussed in 6.3, with the inevitable adoption of nutrient
and quality sensors the ability to extract patterns from this
data becomes more valuable. Information technology is not
commonly used to encapsulate process knowledge,
knowledge about how the process works and how to best
operate it. Process knowledge is typically built up from the
experience of operators and engineers but all too often
leaves with them when they move on. If process knowl-
edge can be encapsulated, then not only is it retained but
the computer can assist decision-making in plant
operation.
We often talk about the electronic revolution, but much
more seldom we recognize another revolution of almost equal
importance, the power electronics revolution. In broad terms,
power electronics control the flow of electric power via elec-
tronic power devices. Of importance for the water and
wastewater industry is applications for electronic motor
controllers, in other words, for all pumps and compressors.
Today variable speed drives is a proven technology, from
small power units to MW size motors. This means that
smooth speed control of pumps and compressors is not only
technically reliable but also economically feasible.
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
12.2. Regulatory driving forces
It is obvious that the driving forces for ICA have increased
with the plant complexity. A plant with only carbon removal
does not require the same kind of control as a complex
nutrient removal plant. Still DO control was early recognized
to be profitable. In a nutrient removal plant there are so many
other reasons for control. The processes compete for the same
oxygen and carbon sources, and more recirculation loops add
to the complexity.
The effluent standards have been tightened. Yearly and
monthly averages have been replaced by spot checks. A major
challenge is to develop measures, which are giving continuous
incentives for improvements and not only work as a one-time
incentive. A good incentive structure should trigger tech-
nology innovations and not only require the use of existing
technology. One successful incentive is the introduction of
effluent load taxes (i.e. payment of taxes per kg of a pollutant
per day) as opposed to fixed effluent limits. These are for
instance applied in Denmark (Henze and Arnbjerg-Nielsen,
2010), parts of Belgium (Vanrolleghem et al., 1996b) and
parts of Switzerland (KGSchG, 1996). The principle of an
effluent load tax appeals to the personal responsibility of the
plant operators and is not based on a cost-intensive policy of
bans, regulations and sanctions (GSA, 2001). Effluent load
taxes are often combined with fixed effluent limits to guar-
antee compliance with environmental needs. In Germany the
regulations for effluent quality limits are getting stricter
(Vanrolleghem, 2011). The compliance testing is based on 2 h
composite samples and 4 out of 5 have to satisfy the regula-
tions. This certainly provides driving forces for more process
control.
12.3. The human factor
The real knowledge is carried by humans and not by papers or
books. Surely, models can provide another most important
package of knowledge. They can express the knowledge in
a “common language” to the involved professionals. The
model can also contain more than the process dynamics and
include instrumentation and actuator dynamics.
Keeping and improving the competence at all levels will
probably be the most important question we have to deal
with. There is a continued need for development and updating
of the curricula in trade schools and universities, recognized
already in 1974 by John F. Andrews, as mentioned in Sec. 3.
Why are many control systems not working properly? In
a recent paper (Rieger and Olsson, 2011) we have made an
attempt to analyze this hurdle. Many years ago Schwarz and
McConnell (1993) concluded that important reasons why
treatment performance might be poor compared to the orig-
inal plant design are that plant operators are constrained by
the treatment technology or they do not exercise adequate
control. They may have inadequate training or lack proper
incentives. This is directly applicable to implementing and
perhaps even more important to maintaining process control
strategies. Several technical constraints still exist and need to
be addressed: unreliable sensors, missing fault detection
methods and improper safety nets and the lack of actuators
with enough control authority to deal with changing influent
1615
quality and quantity or tightened effluent quality require-
ments (Olsson et al., 2005; WEF, 2011). However, the “human
factor” in successful operation is often neglected but possibly
creates more problems than technology (Olsson and Newell,
1998). The lack of or misleading incentives often leads to
poor plant efficiency and sub-optimal effluent quality. In 2.4
one of our early failures was described. Without effective
incentives, the sustained application of a control concept or
any other optimization measure might be jeopardized. To
formulate such criteria is one of the great challenges, both in
design and in operation.
If the implementation of the new control systems is
a success, the plant manager will earn praise for the reduced
costs, but the operators merely have more work to do (with
respect to control: sensor maintenance, increased demands
from the new and more complex actuators). If the system
fails, the operators will be held accountable since they are
responsible to keep the effluent limits. However, the operators
are not rewarded for saving operating costs. Thus, the oper-
ator has obvious reasons to aerate and dose chemicals more
than necessary. This “blame culture” is a common reason that
the operation is kept away from the possible best
performance.
A recent study (WERF, 2010) has listed some important
success factors:

A motivated, trained and experienced work force that is
highly educated and well paid;

The tolerance for process risk and in-depth understanding
of processes deployed;

The ability to quantify gains.
The study also emphasizes the importance of automation
and asks for a high level of automation which allows for
a smaller, specialized operations team and the use of
advanced process analysis tools.
An observation from Dr. Doug Lumley at the Rya WWTP
after their latest expansion is worth noting. Now there are
several “high level” control algorithms implemented. After
a few trials and errors these now work remarkably well. An
example is optimizing the flow to the nitrifying trickling
filter while minimizing the pumping energy. The nitrate
production has to be maximized. Then the flow of the
nitrate produced is to be split between the anoxic zone in
the activated sludge tank and new post-denitrification
reactors. The use of available carbon sources has to be
maximized. The problem is that there are only three people
who have in-depth knowledge about how and why it works.
For the rest of the staff this is “a hidden technology”.
Therefore they need to further educate the staff and raise
the level of competence in these new control systems. A
couple of the operators tried to trace through one of these
control algorithms but gave up when they got up to around
50 sensors. They no longer could keep track of the control
loop details any more. Is ICA going to make life too
complex? Well, certainly more complex but the gains should
be worth it.
We have to devote much more efforts to find the adequate
driving forces. Today the academic world does not sufficiently
reward the tedious work of experiments and field studies. The
1616 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
system leaves very little room for mistakes or delays caused
by all too common failures in experimentation. Most
academic researchers are awarded based on publications and
their impact factors. This “publish or perish” environment has
increased the distance between academic research and ulti-
mate applications in the field. The impact factor has become
more important than the impact of the research.
13. People I met and some lessons I learned
Looking back at a life-long engagement in ICA I have reflected
a lot what are the most important lessons. Inevitably I think of
people that have influenced me: researchers that live with
their research visions, operators that love their work and
students that are eager to learn and to solve new problems.
Some of the pioneers were truly dedicated and most eager to
share their experiences. Their all-pervading vision was to
make wastewater treatment plants work more reliably and
more economically. John F. Andrews was such a person.
When I first met him, in London 1973, I was a young inexpe-
rienced nobody from Sweden. There were a lot of “important
figures” at the conference, and not many of them would take
a note of a youngster. John was the great exception. Though he
was well known and a “big name” he had time to encourage
a young beginner. His dedication and the generosity that he
showed fascinated me. John represented a new thinking in
wastewater and water operations. I was a control engineer
that wanted to learn about automation in wastewater
systems. It was obvious that John was a key person in the
profession.
I was invited by John to come to the University of Houston
in 1975 and we had a most rewarding half year period. I learnt
a lot of process dynamics from him and he wanted to learn
more on control theory from me. He also brought to me an
attitude to research, to knowledge, to people, to students and
to colleagues and this has inspired me for the rest of my
professional life. I have never before or after seen anybody so
dedicated, so eager to teach, so generous in attitude. All the
time he kept in mind to never compromise in research quality.
His teaching was not restricted to normal working hours. We
discussed our research in evenings and weekends. His
capacity for work was legendary, so much that he carried not
one but two briefcases between his office and home. John
always reminded that research has to meet reality all the time.
He wanted to see the ideas from the research lab being
implemented in real full scale systems.
Another legendary person was Wilbur (Bill) Torpey. He was
the chief operator at a large wastewater treatment plant in
New York with a fantastic experience, also an honorary
member of the Water Environment Federation. I met him the
first time in 1975. Within half a minute we were involved in
a most vigorous discussion on DO control and DO profiles. Bill
was so dedicated that after his retirement he set up a pilot
plant in his garage at home. He needed to learn more. Once he
gave a full day of lectures in Houston when he was around 75.
All the PhD students were worn out, but Bill was still full of
energy and eager to tell about his experiences.
Sam Jenkins, the famous editor of Water Research, from its
first issue in 1967 until 1983, taught me a lot. At the first ICA
conferences he instructed us, the presenters, how to behave.
He made us listen with his self-evident authority. He all the
time kept his curiosity. Once I gave a seminar at the University
of California, Berkeley, invited by his son, Professor David
Jenkins. Sam Jenkins happened to be there visiting his son and
was also in the audience. At the end of the seminar Sam was
the one that asked most questions. He had turned 80 years.
In my first years trying to learn control for wastewater
treatment systems I realized that nobody is a prophet at
home. “Traditional” civil engineers told me that “control can
solve nothing”. When I spent a sabbatical semester in 1975
with John Andrews in Houston a Swedish group of wastewater
researchers came to visit John. They wanted to interview him
about control and operation. He immediately told them to talk
with me instead, saying in his generous manner that “I know
nothing about control, please ask Gustaf”. This was an inter-
esting turning point for me. By being far away from home my
competence was suddenly recognized. The lesson I learnt was
to never give up the vision!
Often I reflect why ICA e not only on the “low-level” e is
not considered a most natural part of wastewater treatment
operations. In my opinion there are two main factors. One is
the driving forces and the other the engineering education. A
designer will use safety factors in order to make the system
robust for disturbances. From a risk point of view it is wiser to
design with extra margins than to risk any failure by accepting
smaller safety factors and compensate with control. He will
not be rewarded for saving design costs. The utility or
wastewater organization also mostly obeys some “blame
culture”. It is better to avoid mistakes and criticism than to
save money for operation, as discussed in 12.3. Education in
water and wastewater systems seldom includes anything
about process dynamics and control. Consequently there is
still a lack of understanding between control engineers and
design engineers. Unfortunately we too seldom see control
engineers among employees at wastewater treatment plants
or at consulting companies. Operators most often have
a significant practical experience of dynamics but typically
lack a more formal understanding of the underlying
mechanisms.
Many times I have reflected why I have still stayed at the
University. After many years it became obvious that a main
reason is that I all the time meet young people. They are
willing to try the impossible. They never tell that “this has
already been tested and we know it can not be done”. They
force me to think along new lines and I can never just rely on
old experiences. The students have been, and still are, a great
source of inspiration.
14. The future
Many advanced controls are now commercialized and the
prices are decreasing. Also, the cost for on-line sensors has
been reduced significantly. This means that the critical size of
a plant for a good payback of advanced control decreases and
the potential market of advanced control is growing. Now we
face the challenge to develop methods for a clear cost-benefit
analysis of ICA in both water and wastewater systems. This
analysis also has to include the effect of automation on
 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
design. How do we quantify risks? How to develop more
specific definitions of safety factors? How do we prepare for
disturbances with a flexible design? How do we design in
a modular fashion e to adapt for increasing load and
increasing demands for the future e and still have control and
automation in mind all the time?
The decision-making is another key issue. Water and
wastewater treatment plants are not isolated, but parts of
larger urban water systems. This means that the planning and
implementation of ICA has to be system-wide and pursued
both vertically and horizontally. System-wide also includes
water supply. Smart water grids are getting attention and the
1st International Workshop on Smart Water Grids was held in
Korea in March 2011. A Smart Water Grid delivers water from
suppliers to consumers using a wide spectrum of sensors,
digital communication, computer control and actuators. The
ultimate purpose of a smart water grid is to minimize water
consumption, to ensure water quality, and to maintain and
operate the system as efficiently as possible and to keep the
system consistently operating. The smart grid should auto-
matically detect, analyze and respond to malfunctions and
should optimize asset use (Olsson, 2011b). Why is it needed? A
smart water grid should be adapted to include various sources
of the water, both from conventional sources, surface water
and ground water, and from reused water of water coming
from new processes like desalination. The use of the water
should be related to the quality of water delivered. All of this
has to be monitored and controlled in real time.
The fact that the technical systems are integrated has to be
reflected in the organisation, so that integrated operation
becomes possible, also at the managerial level. The river
associations in Germany and the water authorities in the UK
have shown that such organisational integration can be both
powerful and successful.
Decentralized systems have become increasingly in
demand since they can offer wastewater source separation,
flexibility, water and nutrient reuse in a more economically
feasible way than many centralized systems. In order to be
acceptable a small wastewater treatment plant has to provide
a sufficiently good effluent quality for a specific use. Thus, it
has to offer advanced wastewater treatment, and at the same
time be cost and energy efficient and easy to operate. Auto-
mation will become a crucial part of any decentralized plant,
since the plant has to work autonomously. The potential of
ICA in decentralized operation is considered in Olsson (2011c).
Sensor data and other data in treatment and transport
systems have increased almost exponentially over the last
decades. This does not necessarily mean that the information
has increased as much. With more sensors available and
stricter effluent quality requirements the operator will need
ever improving support from the control systems. This leads
to higher demands on reliable fault analysis, data screening,
information condensation and operator guidance. The quality
of data has to be guaranteed at all times. Also the behaviour or
the control algorithms needs to be supervised. What to do if
the measurement looks unreasonable or is missing? How to
make sure that the actuator has worked as intended? All this
leads to the need for “safety nets” and software robustness for
the controller implementation and control algorithms that do
not run amuck because of failing components.
1617
Today modularisation becomes more and more common.
This requires good interfaces between various software
modules. Considering that the life spans of plant hardware,
computer hardware, instrumentation, electronics, software
and control structures are all quite different, it has to be
possible to make exchanges of modules in the system without
risking that other modules will not function any more. This
puts a lot of pressure not only on the control system manu-
facturers. The users have to be competent customers.
We are well aware that urban water systems are large in
many aspects, not the least in terms of geography. This makes
networking even more interesting to better integrate the
various operations, in particular when decentralized systems
are applied. In Bernard et al. (2005), mentioned in 8.4, the
Internet was used to supervise and control anaerobic digesters
of winery wastes. This was part of the EU TELEMAC project. In
the project experts located at one place could supervise
a number of digesters via the Internet. The potential of Internet
is enormous, not only to read data from various parts of the
system. Via the net control modules, written somewhere else,
can be tested in a real plant before they are permanently
installed in the plant control system. The net can also be more
utilised to bring in experts in special situations, when it is
needed. The integrated plant control may be a vision today, but
will probably be a main issue in the continued ICA development.
The water and energy nexus has become apparent in the
last few years (Olsson, 2011a). Integrated planning and oper-
ation as well as plant-wide control will use ICA methodology
to coordinate the systems for better efficiency and robustness
to disturbances. This is part of the urgent needs caused by the
tremendous urban development and the global warming. ICA
will have a role to play and has to bring together several
specialists to deal with the important challenges. Communi-
cating via dynamical models and simulators is one important
possibility.
The challenge of automation is to comprehend the system
aspects from a unit process perspective and to understand the
process aspects from a system perspective. One important
consequence is that process specialists have to be able to
appreciate the implications of ICA. Likewise computer and
control engineers have to understand the process controlla-
bility and its constraints. The multi-disciplinary character of
water operations is a great challenge that ought to inspire our
future research and development.
Acknowledgements
There are numerous people to thank for their support during
many years. In our early experiments the personnel at the
Käppala wastewater treatment plant in Stockholm gave us
a lot of freedom. Without their generosity we would never
have made any progress. Karl J. Åström (Lund University) was
my mentor in automatic control and gave me the control
background and the encouragement to deal with the waste-
water treatment challenges. Thomas Gillblad and Olof Hans-
son were great companions in these learning phases and
Thomas still shares with me his unique experiences in auto-
mation. Chuck Wells and Dave Stepner (Palo Alto, California)
1618 w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 6 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 5 8 5 e1 6 2 4
introduced me to DO control. John F. Andrews (then in
Houston, Texas) became my great mentor for many years and
I enjoyed his friendship until his death in 2011. During all the
years Truett Garrett (Houston, Texas) has shared his unique
blend of academic knowledge and extensive practical expe-
riences. Ron Briggs (UK) taught me a lot on instrumentation.
Bruce Beck (UK and later USA) and I have had a lot of inspiring
discussions on modelling and control all the time from the
mid 1970s. Joe Stephenson and Dave Chapman (Burlington,
Ontario) offered great opportunities to exchange experiences
in a most rewarding research and experimental environment
at the Wastewater Technology Centre in Burlington. Masakatu
Hiraoka (Kyoto), Tohru Ohto (Hitachi Chi) and Kenji Baba
(Hitachi Chi) generously taught me the Japanese perspective
of ICA. G. v. R. Marais made a lasting impression on me and I
had a most memorable stay in 1984 at his department at the
University of Cape Town. Henri Spanjers (The Netherlands)
and Peter Vanrolleghem (Belgium, now in Quebec, Canada)
taught me respirometry and inspired and still teach me many
aspects of modelling. Bob Hill (USA) and Cello Vitasovic (USA)
have encouraged me since their PhD studies in Houston and
have so generously shared their industrial experiences with
me. Bill Barkley (USA) gave me the opportunity to learn about
ICA applications and environmental problems in the paper
and pulp industry. Willi Gujer (Switzerland) has forced me to
sharpen my mind in our intense discussions on model
complexity. Bengt-Göran Hellström and Lars Gunnar Reinius
(Stockholm Water), Henrik Aspegren and Bengt Andersson
(VA-Syd, Malmö, Sweden), and Doug Lumley (Rya Wastewater
treatment plant, Göteborg, Sweden) have always informed me
of practical realities in large treatment plants. Marinus Niel-
sen (Denmark) opened my eyes many times to see new
applications of ICA. Anders Lynggaard-Jensen (Denmark) has
conveyed a lot of his great knowledge and experience in
instrumentation. Bo N. Jacobsen combines deep theoretical
knowledge with practical realities and teamed in with me on
the water-energy nexus. Imre Takács (Canada, now in France)
has shown me a lot of the combination of practical and
theoretical modelling. Alan Manning (USA) generously told
me about his many experiences of incentives for control and
the human factors. Leiv Rieger (Canada) taught me a lot on
instrumentation and has given me many good thoughts on
the importance of incentives. Jürg Keller gave me the oppor-
tunity to stay at the University of Queensland, Australia,
where I learned a lot. Zhiguo Yuan (Australia) has a similar
background in control as me, and we very soon got a common
understanding of ICA. He has given me many good ideas. He
also served as the ICA specialist group chairman in 2005e2009.
Bob Newell (Australia) was an exceptional co-author and
knowledgeable supporter in our masochistic effort to write
a textbook. Changwon Kim (Korea) took over the chairman-
ship of the ICA Specialist Group 2001e2005. He introduced me
to the remarkable ICA development in Korea and taught me
many aspects of ICA, both at the plant level and at the national
planning level. Jean-Philippe Steyer (France) and Jing Liu
(Sweden) have given me a better insight in many aspects of
anaerobic digestion. Ignasi Rodriguez-Roda and Quim Comas
(Spain) have given me a wider perspective on supervisory
control and Eduardo Ayesa (Spain) has proven how to go from
theory to full practice. During the last six years I have had the
privilege to be part time guest professor in China and in
Malaysia. Zaini Ujang (Vice Chancellor of the Technical Univ.
of Malaysia) and Jining Chen (Vice Chancellor of Tsinghua
University, Beijing) and a large number of PhD students at
their universities have offered plenty of opportunities to
discover water systems from other perspectives. And, last but
not least, my Lund University PhD students that nowadays are
my teachers: Lars Rundqwist, Ulf Holmberg, Sven-Göran
Bergh, Ulf Jeppsson, Christian Rosen, Pernille Ingildsen, Dalius
Misiunas and Jing Liu. Stefan Diehl at the Math Department
taught me how advanced mathematics can be used in settler
modelling. They have made our progress possible. IWA has
provided the platform, inspiration and meeting places that
made this journey possible. As a chairman of the ICA
Specialist Group and editor-in-chief of Water Science and
Technology I have got extraordinary opportunities to learn
from so many great people. For this paper some people have
devoted a lot of time to give me valuable constructive feed-
back: Ulf Jeppsson, Doug Lumley, Leiv Rieger, Henri Spanjers,
Peter Vanrolleghem, Cello Vitasovic and Zhiguo Yuan. I thank
them all.
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