As Ithaca summers become hotter and drier, higher concentrations of the element manganese occur in the city’s water supply, creating challenges for the city’s water treatment plant and raising potential health concerns.
To help the Ithaca Water Treatment Plant, Cornell engineering students have developed a forecasting tool, using an ARIMA – autoregressive integrated moving average model – approach to predict concentrations of manganese in the reservoir to support treatment decisions made by treatment plant staff.
“We are providing a forward-looking model to predict manganese concentrations, so the water treatment professionals can estimate levels several hours or perhaps a few days into the future,” said Matthew Charles Reid, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering, who led the student project.