Facultative Stabilization Pond: Measuring Biological Oxygen Demand using Mathematical Approaches

Abstract

Pollution is a man-made phenomenon. Some pollutants which discharged directly to the environment could create serious pollution problems. Untreated wastewater will cause contamination and even pollution on the water body. Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) is the amount of oxygen required for the oxidation by bacteria. The higher the BOD concentration, the greater the organic matter would be. The purpose of this study was to predict the value of BOD contained in wastewater. Mathematical modeling methods were chosen in this study to depict and predict the BOD values contained in facultative wastewater stabilization ponds. Measurements of sampling data were carried out to validate the model. The results of this study indicated that a mathematical approach can be applied to predict the BOD contained in the facultative wastewater stabilization ponds. The model was validated using Absolute Means Error with 10% tolerance limit, and AME for model was 7.38% (< 10%), so the model is valid. Furthermore, a mathematical approach can also be applied to illustrate and predict the contents of wastewater.