Examining the effect of meteorological parameters with mathematical models on treatment efficiency of wastewater stabilization pond: A case study of Turkey

Wastewater Stabilization Ponds (WSPs) are the most traditional and convenient wastewater treatment plants to operate and maintain. However, these types of facilities require large areas in nature. Baffle walls (BWs) provide two essential advantages: increasing wastewater pollutant removal efficiency and reducing the required area for WSPs. On the contrary, these advantages increase the demand for construction materials. Therefore, the need for optimization of the WSPs area arises. In this study, the dimensioning of WSPs was made by considering the seven climatic regions of Turkey. In the first stage of this study, the best combination with the traditional method was determined using Excel. In addition, the effect of input values of different pollutants in wastewater on WSPs area and retention time was also investigated. This calculation approach takes more time and increases the work load. Therefore, mathematical modeling (MM) was done to accelerate the WSPs optimization process. While both algorithms in these MM, using the interior point algorithm in MATLAB and the GRG algorithm in MS-Excel Solver, reduce the ASH area and Bs by approximately 10%, reductions in the required concrete volume will also occur.