International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, Vol. 7, No.

3, March 2016

Industrial Water Mass Balance Analysis

Pham Thi Thuy, Pham Thanh Tuan, and Nguyen Manh Khai

contribution the better understanding of water metabolism in

AbstractIndustry is demanding ever-greater volumes of industrial park.
water, while at the same time producing wastes and effluents,
which in many places taint and damage the quality of this
precious resource on which all life depends. The water balance
of industrial parks is not well known. This article formalizes a
II. METHODOLOGIES
systematic water mass balance framework to quantify water
flows into, water flows inside and effluents out of the industrial A. Case Study
park. Using the method, Long Thanh industrial park in Dong Long Thanh industrial park established since October,
Nai province, Vietnam was evaluated. The approach makes 2003 in Dong Nai province, Vietnam; that has area of
visible large flows of water that have previously been 486.91ha, 111 enterprises with 12,581 workers, operated rate
unaccounted and ignored. In 2012-2014, the industrial parks
of 79%. The formation and development of industrial zones in
varied 28 to 53% for water consumption for production, 40 to
45% for effluent discharge. The approach demonstrates how the Dong Nai province in recent years has contributed to
principles of water balance can help robust water accounting, promoting the industry and economic growth as well as
monitoring, optimum operating and management in industrial accelerate process of economic restructuring towards
park. industrialization and modernization, and also create jobs for
workers throughout the country. However, water management
Index TermsMass balance, industrial water, water balance is faced number of problems such as 1) inaccurate forecast of
analysis. water quantity, 2) technical design of wastewater treatment
plant inconsistent with the capacity, 3) limitation in operation
and maintenance of drainage system and wastewater
I. INTRODUCTION treatment plant, 4) limitation in water management at local
Industry is demanding ever-greater volumes of water, while level. Hence, the main objective of this case study was to
at the same time producing wastes and effluents. The examine the water metabolism of the industrial park using
industrial activities, however, can lead to severe pollution and water balance analysis.
resource depletion, especially water pollution and water
B. Data Acquisition
depletion, because many industrial parks are located along the
rivers for convenient water use and transport [1]. The A questionnaire survey on water use in industrial parks was
increasing demands for water supply and deteriorated water conducted through Long Thanh industrial zone. The detailed
quality have been important constraints to the sustainable water balance was examined. Data on volumes of water
development of industrial parks in developing countries like consumed and effluent generated was obtained from the
Vietnam. Industrial-scale wastewater reuse, wastewater industrial park records.
treatment and decentralized supplies are a reliable and The acquisition of data for the case study was done through
practical way to cope with these problems. This trend creates a questionnaire-survey, expressly developed for the project.
an enhanced need to understand water flows and water The inquiries contained 14 questions, grouped into four
balance within the industrial park boundary. blocks:
A mass-balance approach is useful in examining the water Company organization: economic activity, environmental
balance in the industrial parks. Transformation refers to policy and organization, description of the production
alteration of mass water (the state in which the mass water is processes;
transported) from inflow to outflow waters, without changing Water consumption: sources and flows;
the total mass water that entered the system [2]. However, this Water service: water supply, connection of drainage
approach has not yet been applied in developing countries system;
because of poor data availability and quality. Hence, the Wastewater production: composition, flows and
paper describes the industrial water mass balance analysis in treatments.
Long Thanh industrial parks, Dong Nai province, Vietnam, in Questionnaires were hand-delivered and later gathered
from each company in Long Thanh industrial park. In some
Manuscript received February 14, 2015; revised June 1, 2015. This work cases, the information was completed with face-to-face or
was supported in part by the Vietnam Environment Administration, Dong telephone interviews. Matric for water balance analysis was
Nai Industrial Park Management Broad, and Hanoi University of Science constructed using inquiry data. Each row of the matric
Vietnam National University.
Pham Thi Thuy and Nguyen Manh Khai are with the Faculty of
represented a company, while each column represented a
Environmental Science, Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National component of water balance analysis (ie., water consumption,
University, 334 Nguyen Trai, Hanoi, Vietnam (e-mail: wastewater generation, wastewater treated, water losses, etc.).
[email protected], [email protected]).
Pham Thanh Tuan is with Vietnam Environment Administration, 10 Ton
Several problems arose while revising the inquiries data:
That Thuyet, Hanoi, Vietnam (e-mail: [email protected]). some companies had not fully completed the questionnaires,

DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2016.V7.771 216

 International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2016

so there were many unknown flows; much erroneous data processes such as incorporation in the final product, washing
were also found. Water balance was applied to each company or rinsing of raw materials or final products, etc.; 2) Auxiliary
in order to verify the data (find the erroneous values) and to processes such as preparation of solvents or slurries, cleaning
quantify unknown water flows. After applying this of equipment and space, removing or providing heat, etc.; 3)
methodology, 7 companies were discarded because of the Domestic use such as meeting hygienic and domestic needs; 4)
incongruity in the data given, and the final analysis was done Outdoor use such as irrigation of landscape space. Water
for 94 companies. losses volume can be appeared through evaporation, drainage,
condensation or losses during production and auxiliary
C. Mass Balance Analysis
processes.
The industrial water use survey was carried resulting in In Long Thanh industrial park, entire enterprises use piped
creation of water flow balances. In order to systematize the water supply, which provided by Nhon Trach Water Supply
study the method of mass balance analysis was applied. The Company. Wastewater generated from 2 main sources:
water balance approach where, based on conservation of mass, manufacturing process and domestic use. Currently, the
the sum of inflows must equal the sum of outflows plus any sewage system of the entire 111 enterprises operating have
change in storage. An initial and critical step is to define a been directly connected to the centralize wastewater treatment
water balance domain by specifying spatial and temporal plant with capacity 15,000 m3 / day.
boundaries of the industrial park.
Conceptually, the water balance approach is
straightforward, though many of the components of the water
balance cannot be directly measured or are difficult to
estimate. In spite of the limitations, experience has shown that
even gross estimates of water balances can be quite useful to
water managers and researchers [3]. Water balances have
been used successfully to study water use and productivity at
the basin level [4], at the irrigation service level [5], at the
field level [6], at the urban system [2], at industrial process
[7]-[9], that use to provide early recognition of changes in
quantity and quality of water. Often, first-order estimates
provide the basis for more in-depth analysis that provides
Fig. 2. Water use in industrial park.
important clues on increasing water productivity.
B. Mass Balance and Industrial Water
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The key concept of a mass balance is that it accounts for all
water movement through in a defined volume in area of
A. Current Water Use in Long Thanh Industrial Park industrial park. Mass and volumetric balances are based on
The summary of industrial sector of the companies was principles of conservation of mass and energy over time. An
given in Fig. 1. The industrial sectors of the enterprises in important aspect of mass balance theory is that a powerful
industrial parks in Dong Nai province were divided into 10 cross - check can be undertaken through comparison of the
groups, such as food & beverage processing, chemical independently measureable quantities of system 1) inputs
industry, textiles & leather, mechanical industry & metal minus outputs and 2) change in stored water.
product, gas products, electronic equipment, paper & wood Equation (1) summarizes the water mass balance for
products, tile products, cosmetic, plastic products, industrial park, with boundary (B)
construction materials and other. The food & beverage
processing, textiles & leather, mechanical industry & metal S = Qi - Qo (1)
product made up high portion of industrial sector in Long Here, S is the change in stored water volume (or mass)
Thanh industrial park. within the boundary, Qi is total volume of inputs, Qo is total
volume of outputs.
In this paper the system boundary (B) was defined as the
area of the industrial park in above industrial facilities. Bulk
surface water storage located outside industrial parks and
ground water aquifers beneath in these areas were not
considered as part of the system. Similarly, inflows to and
outflows from the industrial parks via natural rivers and
creeks (i.e., flow originating outside industrial park) were
excluded from the boundary. Because our intention was to
understand how water use in industrial parks in regard to their
Fig. 1. Portion of industrial sector in Long Thanh industrial park. exchange of water with the environment.
The water, which is consumed by industry, is therefore the
In industrial park, water use is widely used for various water that evaporates, as well as the water that remains in the
activities (expressed in Fig. 2), such as: 1) Production product, the byproducts or the solid waste generated. The

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balance of the water is discharged after use as wastewater or materials of food processing, drink, bottle water and the juice
effluent. This is why the total withdrawal of water by industry of fruit for domestic use are examples. This amount was
from surface and groundwater is often much more than the assumed insignificant in the industrial parks studied. This
water, which is actually consumed. Base on the breakdown of volume of water should not be confused with much larger
water use in industry, the water balance of an industrial park is virtual water flows through the industrial parks, which
described in (2). related to the water need needed to produce a product. Only
the actual water in the product (as H2O molecules) is included
I=C+E (2) in a water mass balance. Some terms are interdependent. For
example, centralized water supply (WS) and rainwater
where: I is the water withdrawal by industry, C is the water influences wastewater generated. It is logical that the input
consumption by industry, E is the industrial effluent affects the output; however, the greatest error when one input
discharge. affects another input. Until a relationship can be derived
The water withdraw by industry (I), which can be between rainfall and decentralized water sourced from each
considered as water inflow, is equal to the total of water industrial park in question, this cannot be addressed
supply (WS) and water reuse (Re) in industrial park. Reuse quantitatively, only highlighted as an assumption. These
within the industrial parks is challenging to define because interdependencies were judged insignificant for this analysis.
these volumes were relatively and the boundary not well
C. Water Balance Analysis
developed; reuse volumes during production process were not
documented and considered internal to the water use for Guided by (2), the water balances analysis for industrial
production process. Hence, the wastewater reuse (Re) is parks was used the following steps: 1) system selection, 2)
defined the treated wastewater reusing for outdoor use (water water balance data compilation, estimation, or estimation, or
the plant and clean up the road) within industrial park. modeling; and 3) performance indicator analysis.
The water consumption by industry (C), which is stored 1) System selection
water volume, includes total of water in production process The system boundary adopted was the industrial park
(P), water for domestic use (D) and water losses (L). The footprint. The areal extent of the system boundary for Long
water losses (L) can appear during production process, Thanh industrial park was adopted from Dong Nai Industrial
evaporation, leackage from water supply network, effluent Park Management Broad report [10]. This include land for
discharge not connect to drainage system in industrial park. A purposes such as manufacturing, internal transport,
similar philosophy as water reuse during production process wastewater treatment, centralized water supply, car parking.
was adopted with regard to water losses in production process,
2) Water balance data compilation, estimation, and
evaporation, water supply piped network leackage and could modeling
be neglected; hence, the water losses (L) is only wastewater
The time period 2012-2014 was adopted due to data
not discharge to drainage system within industrial park.
availability. Data for the area of the industrial parks (A),
The industrial effluent discharge (E) is the water outflow or
number of workers, and all parameters of (2) were assembled
effluent discharges from centralize wastewater treatment
from public and environmental monitoring reports, research
plant in industrial park.
reports, survey form and estimation (Table I).
A number of other water flows could also be discussed in
this model but were ignored. For example, some water enters
or leaves industrial parks in the form of products, such as raw

TABLE I: WATER BALANCE OF LONG THANH INDUSTRIAL PARK (2012-2013)

C (m3/day)
Number of workers (per.) Number of enterprise I (m3/day) E (m3/day)
IS for domestic (m3/day) for production (m3/day)
FP 781 10 805 358 94 354
CI 185 6 247 110 22 115
TL 3803 23 16284 7237 456 8590
MI 605 11 269 120 73 77
EE 2840 9 1276 567 341 368
Co 55 2 27 12 7 8
PP 450 13 256 114 54 88
CM 200 6 87 39 24 25
O 1216 14 532 236 146 149
IS Industrial sector, FP - Food processing, CI - Chemical industry, TL - Textiles & Leather, MI - Mechanical industry and metal product, EE - Electronic
equipment, Co - Cosmetic, PP - Plastic products, CM - Construction materials, O Other, I is the water withdrawal by industry, C is the water consumption
by industry, E is the industrial effluent discharge.

Water withdrawal, water consumption and effluent industrial park, in cubic meter per day, is given in Table I; and
discharge from different industrial sectors, in Long Thanh the result of water mass balance in long Thanh industrial park

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is represented in Fig. 3. The average of water withdrawal from include desired water use and quantities, technologies current
Long Thanh industrial park is 22 287 m3/ day, in which textile industrial parks configuration, and the availability of
& leather with 23 enterprises used highest amount of water, appropriate storage sites [2]. Nonetheless, awareness of these
made up 15% proportion of total water withdraw of industrial volumes is a first step toward designing and evaluating future
park (16,284 m3/ day). By analyzing water consumption and industrial parks that draw less on the environment and expect
comparing it with effluent discharge, it can be observed that less the environment to assimilate waste.
the water consumption in production process in industrial
park made up 2853% of industrial water withdraw, and the
effluent discharge made up 4045 % of. This is directly IV. CONCLUSION
related to industrial products and industrial sectors within In spite of poor data availability and quality the water
industrial park; the industrial sectors, which had products also balance analysis and its mathematical formulation can be
contain water (such as brewery, soft drink bottle, chemical... applied as an instrument for the early recognition of
products), will have water consumption higher than effluent environmentally relevant material flux changes in Vietnam.
discharge [8]. In Long Thanh industrial park, the food The Long Thanh industrial park studied varied with regard to
processing, textiles & leather, chemical industry made up the their potential for water consumption for production and
high portion of industrial sectors, which contain high water effluent discharge to meet total water demand (2853% for
consumption in products and the production processes need water consumption for production, 4045% for effluent
high water consumption. Hence, the average water discharge). The approach demonstrates that the industrial
consumption in this industrial zone was 49% higher than the park is not currently well designed to take advantages of water
effluent discharge. consumption. Thus, implementing improvement strategies
focused on minimization and reutilization will suppose a
diminution of the water consumption of industrial park or
each enterprise; whereas in the case of a substitution of water
imported by an industrial parks own resources.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are very thankful to the Vietnam Environment
Administration and Dong Nai Industrial Park Management
Parks for supporting in data collection. The authors also thank
to Hanoi University of Science for partly providing financial
assistance through a university project.

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Pham Thi Thuy is an environmental engineer. She Nguyen Manh Khai is an environmental scientist. He
received a PhD in water management and treatment received his PhD in environmental chemistry in
from Katholieke University of Leuven in 2012. Agricultural University in Sweden in 2007. He worked
Subsequently, she worked as a consultant and researcher as a researcher and lecturer in Falculty of Environmental
for both the public and the private sectors in Vietnam. Science, Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National
Her scientific contribution in the field of water University. He was a team leader in many
treatment and water management was recognised by the environmental management and environemental
Young Scientist Award by MABUNESCO in the year treatment projects in Vietnam.
2008. Dr. Pham Thi Thuy is currently employed by Falculty of
Environmental Science, Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National
University.

Pham Thanh Tuan is an environmental scientist. He

received his master degree in environmental science
from Hanoi University of Science in 2003. He has
worked for the Department of Environmental Impact
Assessment and Appraisal, Vietnam Environment
Administration since 2000. He also has rich experience
on water management, especially industrial water
management in Vietnam.

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