Introduction

Background of the Study

According to UNESCO (2015), the growth of world population is associated with an

increase in water demand. As it increases, it has the consequences: it endangers the
ecosystem water balance, and the volume of resultant wastewater is high. Because of these,
the authorities are obliged to monitor and improve wastewater treatment processes to
minimize the environmental impact and ensure the good ecological status of water bodies.
(Molinos-Senante et al., 2013). Healthy ecosystems and human health cannot be sustained
without proper sanitation methods and wastewater treatment.

Wastewater treatment has two main purposes: first and most common is the
sanitation of towns and cities, and the sensible need of safe disposal of the gathered
wastewater into the environment after treatment, complying at the same time with the
regulations regarding disposal. In environmental terms, in most arid and semiarid areas the
main amount of water flowing in a river could be treated wastewater, especially in the lower
part of the basin (Folch and Salgot, 2018).

As technology develop through time, wastewater treatment systems tend to adapt

natural processes, chemical, physical and biological. The differences between facilities are
based on the type of technology used, as well as on the possible combinations of technologies.
(Folch and Salgot, 2018).

One the process used in wastewater treatment is sedimentation. Sedimentation is one

of the methods that municipalities use for treating water. It is a physical water treatment
process. Gravity is used to remove suspended solids from water. The effectiveness depends
on the size and weight of the particles. Suspended solids that have a specific gravity similar
to water remain suspended while heavier particles settle. The sedimentation process in
wastewater treatment usually occurs in tanks of various shapes.

It is one of the most basic processes of purifying water, making it a process that is
commonly used and understood throughout the world. It may be used as a preliminary step
in some water treatment processes (AOS Treatment Solutions, 2018).
 The growth of world population is associated with an increase in water demand. The
consequences of this increase are twofold: on the one hand it endangers the ecosystem water
balance, and on the other hand the volume of resultant wastewater is high. This situation
forces authorities to monitor and improve wastewater treatment processes to minimize the
environmental impact and ensure the good ecological status of water bodies. (Molinos-
Senante et al., 2013). Without proper sanitation methods and wastewater treatment, healthy
ecosystems and human health cannot be sustained (UNESCO, 2015).