IE in measures table?

Hello,

IE of a corresponding WWTP catchment area should be reported in the polygons table in polyPop as well as in table sites in popServ.

Should it be reported in the measures table as well? But I guess a measure should be linked to a sample which is not necessarily the case for IE so reporting in measures table is maybe not the right place?

Thank you.

Hello - happy to help with this question, but I’m not sure I understand what you’re referring to with ‘IE’. Could you define the acronym for me?

Hello,

IE is for inhabitant equivalent. There are different means to calculate them. It can be from chemical measures of the wastewater or also based on population, connection to the sewage network/building occupation databases. We have the IE by municipality/wwtp (as a municipality can be covered by more than 1 WWTP).
IE can be aggregated at the WWTP level but it is also useful to store them by municipality/wwtp although I do not see how in the ODM

Thank you for clarifying! I’d hear the term “population equivalent” before for measuring the capacity of a wastewater treatment plant, but “inhabitant equivalent” was new to me.

It’s an interesting point you bring up, and I’d like to hear more of your perspective. As it stands, because polygons and sites can be many different kinds of areas or places, we don’t store capacity as metadata in those tables any longer since it would be empty very often. Instead, capacity is recorded as a site measure (like the ones from your question here: Where to report sites characteristic data).

In practice, this may look something like this (some columns removed for clarity):

Polygons:

Polygon ID Name Polygon Population Geography Type
brxHlth01 Bruxelles Health Region 1,200,000 Health Region
bxlSewer01 Bruxelles Sewer catchment area 01 700,000 Sewer catchment Area
bxlSewer02 Bruxelles Sewer catchment area 02 500,000 Sewer catchment Area

Sites:

Site ID Polygon ID Site Type Sample Shed Name Population Served
wwtpBRXnorth bxlSewer01 Wastewater treatment plant Municipality WWTP Bruxelles Nord 700,000
wwtpBRXsouth bxlSewer02 Wastewater treatment plant Municipality WWTP Bruxelles Sud 500,000

Measures:

Report ID Polygon ID Site ID Dataset ID Compartment Specimen Measure Value Unit Aggregation
measRepX0 bxlSewer01 wwtpBRXnorth wwBelgium water sample covN1 0.00243 gc/mL mean
siteRepX bxlSewer01 wwtpBRXnorth wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 1,200,000 population equivalents single
siteRepY bxlSewer02 wwtpBRXsouth wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 1,500,000 population equivalents single

I think with this example you can see how the site measures and the details on the sites and polygons can link together. But my question to you, and where I’d like to hear more of your input, is:
a) whether you this makes sense to you, and
b) if you think this is adequate for storing this kind of information.

If you think that it should be made a metadata header for sites again, I’m happy to hear that feedback as well. Let me know!

Hello,

Thanks for your detailed answer. As for the IE by WWTP your proposal makes sense to me.
But I would also like to store them by WWTP/municipality (a municipality can be connected to multiple WWTPs and a WWTP can be connected to several municipalities so the raw data are x IE from this municipality going to this WWTP). I think it could be done by recording the IE by municipality/wwtp in the polygon table and link them to the corresponding wwtp in sites. But then if I want to make some aggregations of those IE at a provincial, regional or country level I would have to record the IE by province and region, country in the polygon table and select a different geotype.
With such a solution I would still need to keep somewhere outside the ODM which municipality belongs to which province and region unless having a parPolygonID in the polygon table maybe. It seems quite complex.

Thank you for this additional insight, and these really good points.

I think I’m following, and I believe I have a way of accomplishing what you’re wanting to using the current structure. I will say, though, that “parent polygon” or some other refactoring of polygon overlap, nesting, etc. is something we’ve discussed before and are considering for a version 3 (once version 2 is completely stable with the accompanying tools).

I think the solution to recording the IE at different levels (municipality, province, region, etc) is actually by using the sites table, and linking out to polygons where appropriate.

For example:
(I’ve left the GeoType as blank for some entries, but I think you’re right that we might need to release a patch with additional values, such as municipality, region, country, etc. - would also need to adjust sample shed for this)

Polygons:

Polygon ID Name Polygon Population Geography Type
brxHlth01 Bruxelles-ville Health Region 189,000 Health Region
bxlSewer01 Bruxelles Sewer catchment area 01 700,000 Sewer catchment Area
bxlSewer02 Bruxelles Sewer catchment area 02 500,000 Sewer catchment Area
brx_reg Région de Bruxelles-Capitale 1,200,000 NA
vlaams Région flamande 6,774,807 NA
wallonne Région wallonne 3,658,975 NA
belge Royaume de Belgique 11,697,557 NA

Sites:

Parent Site ID Site ID Polygon ID Site Type Sample Shed Name Population Served
NA belgique belge NA country Royaume de Belgique 11,697,557
belgique flamande vlaams NA Region Région flamande 6,774,807
belgique wallonne wallonne NA Region Région wallonne 3,658,975
belgique regBRX brx_reg NA region Région de Bruxelles-Capitale 1,200,000
regBRX villeBRX brxHlth01 NA Municipality Bruxelles-Ville 189,000
regBRX wwtpBRXnorth bxlSewer01 Wastewater treatment plant Municipality WWTP Bruxelles Nord 700,000
regBRX wwtpBRXsouth bxlSewer02 Wastewater treatment plant Municipality WWTP Bruxelles Sud 500,000

Measures:

Report ID Polygon ID Site ID Dataset ID Compartment Specimen Measure Value Unit Aggregation
measRepX0 bxlSewer01 wwtpBRXnorth wwBelgium water sample covN1 0.00243 gc/mL mean
siteRepBRXnord bxlSewer01 wwtpBRXnorth wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 1,200,000 population equivalents single
siteRepBRXsud bxlSewer02 wwtpBRXsouth wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 1,500,000 population equivalents single
siteRepBRXreg brx_reg regBRX wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 2,700,000 population equivalents mean
siteRepBelgNat belge belgique wwBelgium water site WWTP Capacity 9,500,000 population equivalents mean

Do you think this sort of structure for maintaining aggregated capacity measures at the municipal, federal, etc. levels would work? Without then necessitating an external dataset?

This topic was automatically closed 24 hours after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.