Fate and Transport of Haloforms in Water Distribution Systems

This chapter presents a recent overview of various haloforms that may be found in drinking water. It covers the main aspects related to their occurrence in drinking water in association with different disinfection processes practiced in water treatment technologies. The health effects of haloforms including carcinogenicity and reproductive and developmental toxicity are summarized and followed by a coverage of the main relevant regulations. A major section discussing the transport of haloforms in general and disinfection by-products (DBPs) in particular throughout the water distribution systems is then presented. Topics covered in this section include factors affecting DBPs formation, kinetic models for DBP formation, and DBPs transport modeling approaches in pipe networks. A recent approach developed to model the THM species in pipe networks is elaborated on at the end of the chapter with a brief presentation of its application to the distribution system of Abu Dahbi, the capital city of United Arab Emirates.