Chemical accidents in freshwater: Development of forecasting system for drinking water resources

Chemical accidents have threatened drinking water safety and aquatic systems when hazardous chemicals flow into inland waterbodies through pipelines in industrial complexes. In this study, a forecasting system was developed for the prevention of drinking water resource pollution by considering chemical transport/fate through both pipelines and river channels. To this end, we coupled a pipe network model (Storm Water Management Model) with a calibrated hydrodynamic model (Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code). In addition, we investigated whether chemical transport through pipelines would make a difference in chemical concentration predictions. For both pipelines and river channels, the results showed lower peak concentrations than those without pipelines, whereas the time of peak concentration did not change significantly. When chemicals were transported with both pipelines and river channels, the peak concentrations were 25.81% and 41.91% lower than those of chemicals carried directly into the Han and Geum Rivers without the pipeline transport. Further, our system is automated from scenario generation to analysis and usage is straightforward, with a simple input of accident information. The results of this study can be utilized to establish a safe water supply system and preliminary countermeasures against accidental water pollution in the future. [Display omitted] •A forecasting system was developed for drinking water sources in chemical accidents.•Our system can simulate chemical transport through pipe networks and river channels.•Chemical transport including pipelines showed different concentration predictions.•Peak concentrations and peak times varied largely in response to accident scenarios.•Our results can serve as reference data for water pollution accidents in the future.