The current state and problems of the public water supply system of the city of Irkutsk and Irkutsk Area

Summary

Supplying the population with high quality drinking water has been a high-priority task of the urban land development. Lake Baikal and the Angara River, its effluent, supply most of the Irkutsk Area population with drinking water. The pure drinkable water of Baikal that the Angara is carrying is as such only upstream of Irkutsk. Onwards it turns into the holding pond of industrial and domestic wastewater. Downstream Irkutsk the Angara water cannot be used for drinking water supply without organics, heavy metals and oil products removal. Using the example of establishing the public water supply system of the Irkutsk Area the aspects of supplying water from the open surface water sources were studied. It is shown that the water use under the conditions of the regulated surface water sources with significant water level fluctuations demands constructing combined water intakes of special design – shore, channel, infiltration and pontoon. The sources with low-mineralized water shall be used in combination with mineralized underground water. The need of developing group water supply systems with the use of protected underground water sources or large-scale surface fresh water sources is shown.

Key words

potable water , surface water source , water intake , ground water , centralized water supply system , water level in a water reservoir