w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/watres

Probabilistic parameter estimation of activated

sludge processes using Markov Chain Monte Carlo
Soroosh Sharifi a,1, Sudhir Murthy b, Imre Takacs c, Arash Massoudieh a,*
a

Civil Engineering, The Catholic University of America, 630 Michigan Ave NE, Washington, DC 20064, USA
DC Water and Sewer Authority, 5000 Overlook Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20032, USA
c
Dynamita, 7 lieu-dit Eoupe, 26110 Nyons, France
b

article info

abstract

Article history:

One of the most important challenges in making activated sludge models (ASMs) applicable

Received 15 August 2013

to design problems is identifying the values of its many stoichiometric and kinetic pa-

Received in revised form

rameters. When wastewater characteristics data from full-scale biological treatment sys-

23 November 2013

tems are used for parameter estimation, several sources of uncertainty, including

Accepted 5 December 2013

uncertainty in measured data, external forcing (e.g. influent characteristics), and model

Available online 15 December 2013

structural errors influence the value of the estimated parameters. This paper presents a
Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework for the probabilistic estimation of activated

Keywords:

sludge process parameters. The method provides the joint probability density functions

ASM

(JPDFs) of stoichiometric and kinetic parameters by updating prior information regarding

Biological treatment

the parameters obtained from expert knowledge and literature. The method also provides

Bayesian

the posterior correlations between the parameters, as well as a measure of sensitivity of

Markov Chain Monte Carlo

the different constituents with respect to the parameters. This information can be used to

Uncertainty assessment

design experiments to provide higher information content regarding certain parameters.

The method is illustrated using the ASM1 model to describe synthetically generated data
from a hypothetical biological treatment system. The results indicate that data from fullscale systems can narrow down the ranges of some parameters substantially whereas
the amount of information they provide regarding other parameters is small, due to either
large correlations between some of the parameters or a lack of sensitivity with respect to
the parameters.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

Since its introduction in 1987, IWAs Activated Sludge Model 1

(ASM1) (Henze et al., 1987) and its successors have become
extensively popular for the design and optimization of biological treatment systems (Gernaey et al., 2004; Sin et al.,

2005). As mechanistic models, the main goal of ASMs is to

predict the performance of biological treatment processes in
removing organic matter and nutrients under different conditions. When applying ASMs to design or optimize biological
treatment processes, it is important to recognize and quantify
the uncertainties associated with the model outputs (Belia
et al., 2009). The main sources of uncertainty in ASM

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: S.Sharifi@bham.ac.uk (S. Sharifi), arashmassoudieh@gmail.com, massoudieh@cua.edu (A. Massoudieh).
1
Current address: School of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
0043-1354/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2013.12.010

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

modeling can be categorized into four main groups (Cierkens

et al., 2012):
1) Model input data uncertainty, i.e., uncertainties associated
with influent characterization or environmental factors
such as temperature.
2) Uncertainty in model parameters.
3) Model structural error, due to the fact that the model is, at
best, an idealization of the real process.
4) Uncertainty associated with the numerical methods used
within the model (truncation errors).
Arguably, the most important challenge in making ASM
models usable in practice is attributing the values of its many
stoichiometric and kinetic parameters (Gernaey et al., 2004)d
hereafter, for the sake of simplicity, referred to as parametersdwhich sometimes cannot be measured directly
(Weijers and Vanrolleghem, 1997). Usually, when ASMs are
used for practical purposes, the values of kinetic and stoichiometric parameters, such as biomass growth rates, yield
coefficients, and half-saturation constants, are determined
based on the values provided in the literature. The literature
values are obtained through independent batch or other types
of experiments under controlled conditions or by using previous model calibrations based on data from full-scale systems. Because different parameter values are suggested by
different studies, a range of values for each parameter is often
reported (Jeppsson, 1996). These ranges are sometime so wide
that choosing different parameters within the range can result
in drastically different predictions. Lab experiments under
controlled conditions often require several series of measurements of constituents of interest under a range of other
influencing factors, while keeping other factors constant
(Amano et al, 2002). The values obtained under these conditions are not always applicable to full-scale bioreactors, due to
broader heterogeneities and the interactions of larger
numbers of components, including a more diverse set of
chemical and bacterial species. On the other hand, when
manual calibration is used to estimate ASM model parameters
using data collected from full-scale systems, it is not guaranteed that the obtained set of parameters is the only
parameter-set, resulting in reproduction of the observed data.
This problem has been referred to as non-uniqueness, lack of
identifiability, or equifinality (Beven and Freer, 2001). This is
due to the fact that ASMs are generally over-parameterized
with respect to the amount of data available for calibration,
and because, under certain operational bioreactor conditions,
the effluent characteristics can be insensitive to the values of
some of the parameters (Cierkens et al., 2012).
Automatic and semi-automatic deterministic methods
based on least-squares and maximum likelihood criteria (e.g.,
linearized maximum likelihood (Kabouris and Georgakakos,
1996a, b)) have been used to estimate the optimal values of
ASM parameters using observed data. Gradient-based (e.g.,
generalized reduced gradient method (Afonso and da
Conceicao Cunha, 2002)) and heuristic search methods (e.g.,
Simplex techniques (Cierkens et al., 2012)) have been used
extensively in the past to determine ASM parameters. Ayesa
et al. (1991) used the extended Kalman filter to estimate ASM
parameters as time-dependent parameters. Vanrolleghem

255

and Keesman (1996) compared a number of nonlinear

parameter estimation methods for identifying ASM parameters and suggested the use of Monte Carlo simulations. Sin
et al. (2008) used a Monte Carlo-based search algorithm to
estimate the ASM parameters. Cox (2004) compiled a few databases containing the values of the parameters of ASM and
used a Bayesian approach to develop statistical distributions
for them. Gradient-based methods are prone to getting trapped in a local optima (Abusam et al., 2001), and sometimes,
parameter values that may not be physically interpretable end
up being found (Weijers and Vanrolleghem, 1997). In addition,
while deterministic methods might provide a parameter set
that maximizes the chance of reproducing the observed data,
they are incapable of providing any reliability measure for the
estimated parameter values.
The complexity involved in the calibration of ASMs has led
to a number of protocols and guidelines for manual systematic calibration of full-scale ASM systems. BIOMATH (Petersen
et al., 2002; 2003; Vanrolleghem et al., 2003), STOWA (Hulsbeek
et al., 2002), HSG (Langergraber et al., 2004), WERF (Melcer
et al., 2003), and IWAs STR (Rieger et al., 2012) are among
the most well-known protocols. These all consist of four main
steps: 1) characterizing influent wastewater; 2) constructing
dynamic influent loading data; 3) manual parameter estimation; and 4) model validation. A critical comparison of these
methods can be found in (Sin et al., 2005).
Almost all of the approaches used for the automatic calibration of ASMs have been deterministic so far with the
exception of the work of Juznic et al. (2001), who applied
Bayesian inference to estimate parameter uncertainty associated with a revised version of ASM3 and showed its advantage over some deterministic linear theory methods. In
deterministic parameter estimation approaches one set of
parameter values often as a results minimization between
some measures of misfit between the modeled and measured
results is obtained using a manual or automated optimization
technique. However, many sources of uncertainty and error,
including observation error, model structural error, errors
associated with input variables and external forcing, and
possible non-uniqueness of optimum parameters or lack of
sensitivity of the predicted effluent concentrations to certain
parameters under some conditions, are inevitably propagated
into the estimated parameters and need to be quantified.
Deterministic parameter estimation approaches provide a
single set of parameters, and it is not clear how much deviation from those estimated values is still acceptable and what
the shape of the region of plausibility in the parameter space
looks like. Regardless of what calibration method is used,
parameter uncertainty is always present and eventually
transmits into model output uncertainty (Morgan and
Henrion, 1992). Using a single set of parameters to obtain
some model outputs could result in the sub-optimal design of
biological treatment systems, incorrect planning decisions,
and poor effluent water quality. Therefore, to use the ASMs
effectively for optimization of the operation and design of
biological treatment systems, it is necessary that the effects of
these uncertainties on the uncertainties of parameter estimation to be quantified.
Various uncertainty quantification approaches have been
used in various scientific fields. These include local sensitivity

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approaches based on multiple linear regression that are

established on the assumption of a linear dependence of the
model outputs and parameters (e.g. Hill and Tiedeman, 2007;
Foglia et al., 2009), global methods such as Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimator, GLUE, (Beven and Freer, 2001)
and Bayesian inference. Local sensitivity analysis is not able to
capture the effects of non-linear dependence of outputs to the
parameters, but on the other hand, requires a much smaller
number of model runs to perform the uncertainty quantification. The GLUE methodology uses a subjective measure of
likelihood based on a metric of goodness of fit to assign
different levels of confidence to different parameter sets. It
requires a large number of model evaluations to generate realizations of model outputs using parameters sampled from
(often) uniform distributions over the plausible range of each
parameter. In the Bayesian approach the joint probability
distribution of parameters after conditioning them to the data
and prior knowledge about the parameters (referred to as
posterior distribution) is obtained based on the formal Bayes
theorem. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods can
then be used to draw large number of samples from this
posterior distribution. The robustness of the Bayesian
approach compared to other methods has been demonstrated
in several studies (e.g Makowski et al., 2002; Gallagher and
Doherty, 2007). Both GLUE and MCMC approaches require a
much larger of model runs compared to the local sensitivity
methods.
Bayesian modeling allows incorporation of prior knowledge regarding the parameters; for example, from past lab
experiments or ranges of parameters provided in the literature. The resulting joint PDFs of the parameters can be used in
conjunction with Monte Carlo simulation techniques to
perform probabilistic designs and controls of biological
treatment systems, while taking into consideration the
parameter uncertainty. Another advantage of Bayesian
parameter estimation is that, as further data is obtained, it can
be used to update the posterior parameter probability
distributions.
In this study, the development of a Markov Chain Monte
Carlo (MCMC) method based on Bayesian hierarchical
modeling for the probabilistic parameter estimation of activated sludge systems is described. To demonstrate the
application of the method, this is used for calibrating the
ASM1 using synthetic data obtained from a test case adopted
from the literature.

2.

Methods

2.1.

Generic bioreactor model

The general model for a bioreactor with multiple continuously

mixed reactors (referred to as stages) connected in series with
possible inflow, outflow, return and waste flows, and aeration
and feeding schemes (Fig. 1) can be expressed as:



d Vk Ci;k
ur;k Qr Ci;r uk Ci;in Q
dt


!
k1
X
ur;k0 Qr uk0 Q Ci;k1
k0 1

!
k
nr
X
X
ur;k0 Qr uk0 Q Ci;k Vk
fl:i Rl
k0 1


_ i;k
ki;k Vk Ci  Ci;k m

(1)

l1

where Vk is the volume of tank k, Ci,k is the concentration of

constituent i in stage k, Q is the inflow rate to the entire system, uk is the fraction of influent entering stage k, ur,k is the
fraction of return flow entering stage k (for a conventional
plug flow system, it is one for the first tank and zero for all
others), Ci,r is the concentration of component i in the return
flow, Ci,in is the concentration of constituent i in the influent,
Qr is the flow rate of the return flow, Qk is the flow rate into
stage k as step feed, nr is the total number of reactions
affecting all the components, Rl is the reaction rate of reaction
number l, 4l.i is the stoichiometric coefficient for reaction l
affecting constituent i, ki,k is the rate constant for the mass
transfer of constituent i in tank k through bubble aeration or
atmospheric exchange with a saturation concentration Ci ,
_ i;k is the mass transfer rate of the influx of constituent i
and m
into stage k. Eq. (1) is the general form of the mass balance
model, and any subset of it can be used to represent other
simpler settings. In Eq. (1), the term on the left side is the rate
of change in the total mass of the constituents i in tank k; the
first term on the right side is the mass inflow due to return
flow; the second term is the mass inflow of the influent; the
third term is the inflow from the preceding stage; the fourth
term is the outflow of the constituents; the fifth term is the
production or disappearance of the constituents due to the
reactions; the sixth term is the effect of rate-limited mass
transfer (e.g., aeration); and the last term is the direct addition
of the constituents (e.g., addition of carbon source for denitrification). A clarifier model is needed to calculate the values
of Ci,r for settleable (particulate) components. In the code
developed for this study, the clarifier can be optionally

Fig. 1 e Generic bioreactor model.

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w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

represented by assuming zero solid concentration in the

effluent and quasi steady-state approximation (i.e. performing mass balance while ignoring the solid storage changes in
the clarifier), or by the dynamic clarifier model proposed by
Takacs et al. (1991). In addition, in the biological reaction
network used for modeling the reactors, the code allows any
reaction rate expression Rl and stoichiometric constant 4l.i to
be specified by the user as a function of concentrations of
components and model parameters.

 

e C; G
P C




T 1
~ j  Cj G1 C
~ j  Cj
n
C
X
1
C
B
exp@ 
A
2
2pjGjn=2
j1
0

(6)

or if the error structure is assumed to be log-normal and

multiplicative, the likelihood function becomes:

 
e C; Gln
P C

m Y
n
Y

1
1

exp

cij A2pjGln jn=2

i1 j1

2.2.

h  
h  

i

iT 1
~ j  ln Cj G1 ln C
~ j  ln Cj
n
ln C
X
ln
A
@ 
2
j1
0

Bayesian parameter estimation

Equation (1) can be expressed in a more general form as:

(7)
dC
fCt; Ut; Q
dt

(2)

e gCt;
Ct

(3)

where C(t) is the state variable vector representing the concentrations of various components in the reactor (here also
referred to as the true concentration), U(t) is the input (or
e is the
external forcing vector), Q is the parameter vector, Ct
observed data vector, and contains some measures representing the random observation error. In Eqs. (2) and (3),
function f represents the bioreactor model structure, and g
represents the output error structure. When observations at
e
certain time intervals are available, Ct
and C(t) can be repe ~cij  containing the values of
resented as matrices, with C
observed constituents i at data point j, and C [cij] containing
modeled constituent concentrations at the same times.
The goal of stochastic parameter estimation is to find the
joint distribution of the parameters, Q, given observed
e In a Bayesian
external forcing U(t) and observed values C.
framework, the joint probability distribution of the parameters after incorporating the observations (posterior distribution) can be expressed through Bayes theorem (Kaipio and
Somersale, 2004):

 

 
e Q; G $PQ; G
P Q; Ge
C P C
 
e
P C

(4)

In Eq. (7), Gln is the variance-covariance matrix of the logtransformed concentrations of constituent concentrations.
In practice, all of the elements of the variance-covariance
matrix need to be estimated using the MCMC approach.
Since this makes the total number of parameters to be estimated very large and imposes a very large computational
burden, the observation errors are typically assumed to be
independent, and the correlation between the observed concentration errors are ignored (Walsh and Whitney, 2012). By
making this assumption, the variance-covariance matrix becomes a diagonal matrix:
2
6
G6
4

s21

3
s22

7
7
5

(8)

s2m

where si is the error standard deviation for constituent i. In a

log-normal multiplicative error structure for observed
concentrations:
2
6
Gln 6
4

s2ln;1

s2ln;2

7
7
5

(9)

s2ln;m

where sln,i is the standard deviation of log-transformed concentrations of constituents i. Incorporating Eqs. (8) and (9) into
Eqs. (6) and (7), respectively, results in:
0


2 1
n X
m
X
~cij  cij
1
A
!n exp@ 
Y
m
2s2i
j1 i1
n=2
2p
si

where G [sik] is the variance-covariance matrix of the

observation error between the concentrations of different
constituents and its elements, with each element, sik, being
the covariance between the concentrations of constituents i
and k. In Eq. (4), the first term in the numerator on the right
side is the likelihood function that represents the probability
of seeing the observed concentrations, given the true values of
the parameters; the second term in the numerator is the prior
density, which contains the prior knowledge about the values
of the parameters; and finally, the denominator is a normalizing factor referred to as evidence. If we make an assumption
about the observed error structure, g, given the ASM, the
likelihood function can be expressed as:

 

e C; Gln
P C

 

h 
i
e Q; G P C
e CQ; Ut; G
P C

Assuming that the prior distributions of the parameters are

also independent, the prior distribution can be written as:

(5)

For example, if it is assumed that the observed error follows a Gaussian distribution, then the likelihood function can
be written as:

 

e C; G
P C

(10)

i1

and

m Y
n
Y

cij A2pn=2

i1 j1

@ 

PQ; G

m
Y
i1

Pqi $

m
Y

!n exp
sln;i

i1




 2 1
n X
m
X
ln ~cij  ln cij A
2s2ln;i
j1 i1

m
Y



P slni
i1

(11)

(12)

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w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Furthermore, assuming that the prior distributions are

normal for some of the parameters and log-normal for others,
and considering the fact that no prior information about the
observation error standard deviations are available, Eq. (4) for
the two cases of normally and log-normally distributed
observation error becomes:
0


 1
n X
m
X
~cij  cij 2
1
A
!n exp@ 
m
2s2i
Y
j1 i1
si


 
C f
P q1 ; q2 ; .; ql ; Ge

3.

i1
q m 2
 k 2k

l1
Y
e

2s

p;k

sp;k

k1



e f
P q1 ;q2 ;.;ql ;GjC


ln qk0 mk0

l2
Y
e

2s2
p;k0

0
1
m
Y

(13)

fk0 sln;p;k0

k0 1

!n exp@ 

sln;i




 2 1
n X
m
X
ln ~cij ln cij A
2s2ln;i
j1 i1

i1

l1
Y

q m 2
 k 2k

k1

2s
p;k

sp;k

ln qk0 mk0

l2
Y
k0 1

2s2
p;k0

fk0 sln;p;k0

(14)

where mk is the mean of the prior distribution of parameter qk

and sp,k is its standard deviation.
In order to evaluate various moments or confidence intervals of the posterior parameters, Eq. (4) needs to be integrated over the domains of all parameters. Because it is not
feasible to do this practically, due to the large number of parameters, an MCMC method (Kaipio and Somersale, 2004;
Gamerman and Hedibert, 2006) is used to generate a large
number of samples from the posterior distribution. Having a
large number of samples according to the posterior distribution, we can effectively construct histograms representing
marginal distributions of the parameters. In this work, a
MetropoliseHastings algorithm (Metropolis et al., 1953) is used
to sample from Eqs. (13) or (14). The algorithm generates
Markov chains in which each new set of variables depends on
the previous set. The code developed in this study uses
normal or log-normal proposal densities Qq0i ; qk according to
whether the prior densities of parameters are considered
normal or lognormal. The proposal densities are used to
0
generate proposal parameter sets Q given the previous states
0
k
Q . The proposal parameter set Q is accepted as the next
value based on the following criteria:

Qk1

8
>
< Q0
>
:

Qk

if

0

PQ Q Q0 ;Qk
U0; 1 < min P Qk Q Qk ;Q0 ; 1

with the number of parameters, constituents, and reactions

being limited by the hardwares ability to solve the system and
the computation time. The reaction rate expressions and stoichiometric constants can be expressed as user-defined functions of parameters and constituent concentrations.

Demonstration test case

A simple activated sludge system was adopted from Kabouris

and Georgakakos (1996b) to test the method for the parameter
estimation of the ASM1 model. This system includes a fully
mixed biological reactor (CSTR), followed by a settling tank
(Fig. 2). The reactors volume was V 16,000 m3, and the
settling tank had an area of 790 m2 and volume of 1455 m3. The
underflow rate from the settling tank was Q 18,350 m3/d,
and the sludge waste and return flow rates were Qw 600 m3/
d and Qr 17,750 m3/d, respectively. The clarifier was modeled
using the quasi steady-state assumption; therefore, for all of
the solids:
Cr Cw CQ Qr =Qr Qw

A typical time-varying municipal wastewater flow rate

pattern for a 4.5-day period starting from Saturday midnight
to Thursday noon (Tchobanoglous and Burton, 1991) was
considered for the influent (Fig. 3). The influent was assumed
to consist of five constituents: slowly biodegradable substrate
(XS), particulate biodegradable organic nitrogen (XND), readily
biodegradable substrate (SS), NH4 NH3 nitrogen (SNH), and
soluble biodegradable organic nitrogen (SND). It should be
noted that since the waste flow rate, Qw, was fixed, the presence or absence of soluble and particulate inert organics did
not impact the outcome, as the focus was on the stoichiometric and kinetic parameters. The assumed variations of the
influent component concentrations are depicted in Fig. 4. The
dissolved oxygen concentration was assumed to be controlled
at 6 g/m3 in the reactor, and the rest of the constituents were
assumed to be present in negligible concentrations in the
influent. Characteristics of the influent data are provided in
Supplementary Table 1.
To find initial constituent concentrations in the biological
tank, a set of reported average parameter values (Table 1) were

(15)

otherwise

where U(0,1) is a uniformly distributed random number between 0 and 1 and P is the posterior probability density.

2.3.

Computer program

A program was written using the C language to model the

performance of the biological treatment system by solving Eq. (1)
and to perform both a deterministic parameter estimation using
a hybrid genetic algorithm (Massoudieh et al., 2008) and a stochastic parameter estimation using MCMC. The code is flexible
in terms of allowing users to define their own reaction network,

(16)

Fig. 2 e Hypothetical activated sludge system (adopted

from Kabouris and Georgakakos, 1996a,b).

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Fig. 3 e Influent wastewater flow.

considered, and the ASM1 was run to steady state using a fixed
flow rate and flow-weighted average inflow concentrations
until it reached steady-state conditions. Then, using the same
parameter set, the process was simulated using the varying
influent over a 4.5-day period, and a set of perfect measurements for the effluent flow time series were obtained. To
generate a time series of realistic measured effluent concentrations, the measurements were corrupted by simulated
measurement noise. The noise was generated using a multiplicative and log-normally distributed first-order autoregressive (AR) process. The AR model was used, as opposed to
white noise, in order to better resemble the model structural
error that is often auto-correlated (Yang et al., 2007). The noise
magnitude was selected to resemble the effects of the
different sources of uncertainties including the uncertainties
associated with observation error, model structural error and
input uncertainties in the model predictions. The developed
code can consider settling and aeration parameters as unknown and estimate their distributions using observed data,
however, in the demonstration case here these parameters
were not included in the analysis.

4.

Results

Tables 1 and 2 list the parameters and constituents, respectively, of the ASM1. Eleven of the ASM1 parameters (values
specified as a range in Table 1) were considered parameters to
be estimated using the model, and the values of parameters
with single values (e.g., ka, kx) were considered fixed. It should

259

be noted that other ranges for ASM1 parameters has been

proposed (e.g. Cox, 2004; Rieger et al., 2012; Benedetti et al.,
2012) in which the range of some of the parameters are
smaller and for some it is wider. Using alternative priors could
impact the estimated posterior parameter distributions. The
prior distributions of the parameters were considered lognormally distributed with 95% confidence intervals given by
the minimum and maximum ranges of the parameters shown
in Table 1. In this application, eight chains with a total length
of 5,000,000 samples were used, and the first 1,000,000 samples were disregarded as the burn-in period. The initial
conditions were established using the true parameter
values. The criteria suggested by Geweke and Tanizaki (2001)
were used to evaluate the convergence of the MCMC
algorithm.
Fig. 5 shows the obtained posterior distributions of the
ASM1 parameters. In this figure, the dashed line represents
the value of each parameter used to generate the synthetic
observation data, while the solid vertical line represents the
deterministic value of the parameter obtained using the genetic algorithm through maximizing the likelihood function.
Due to a lack of sensitivity toward some of the parameters, a
possible correlation between the parameters, their nonuniqueness, and the fact that genetic algorithms are not efficient at finding the exact optima (Yuret, 1994), the deterministically estimated parameters do not match with the true
parameters. In addition, the noise added to the results of the
simulations used to generate the synthetic observation data
will result in parameter values different than the original
parameter values. However, as can be seen in Fig. 5, the histograms representing the posterior distribution of the parameters are generally in good agreement with the true values
of the parameters. The level of confidence obtained for each
parameter depends on the confidence in the prior knowledge,
how much the value of that parameter can affect the effluent
concentration of water quality constituents and how close the
data on the effluent concentrations matches the expected
value of the predicted effluent concentrations. Table 3 contains a measure of sensitivity of effluent constituent concentrations with respect to the parameters, as well as a measure
of the overall sensitivity of the model output with respect to
all the parameters, which is calculated as the sum of the
sensitivities of each constituent. The sensitivity of constituent
j with respect to parameter qi is calculated as:

Fig. 4 e Concentration variations of influent components.

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w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Table 1 e ASM1 model parameter ranges (Jeppsson, 1996).

Parameter

Symbol

Unit

Literature
range
Min

Stoichiometric parameters
Heterotrophic yield
Autotrophic yield
Fraction of biomass yielding particulate products
Mass N/Mass COD in biomass
Mass N/Mass COD in products from biomass
Kinetic parameters
Heterotrophic maximum specific growth rate
Heterotrophic decay rate
Half-saturation coefficient (hsc) for heterotrophs
Oxygen hsc for heterotrophs
Nitrate hsc for denitrifying heterotrophs
Autotrophic maximum specific growth rate
Autotrophic decay rate
Oxygen hsc for autotrophs
Ammonia hsc for autotrophs
Correction factor for anoxic growth
of heterotrophs (mH)
Ammonification rate
Maximum specific hydrolysis rate
Hsc for hydrolysis of slowly biodegradable substrate
Correction factor for anoxic hydrolysis

Ij;i

g cell COD formed (g COD oxidized)1

g cell COD formed (g N oxidized)1
Dimensionless
g N (g COD)1 in biomass
g N (g COD)1 in endogenous mass

0.380
0.070
0.080
0.086
0.060

e
e

0.750
0.280

0.534
0.140
0.080
0.086
0.060

mH
bH
Ks
KO,H
KNO
mA
bA
KO,A
KNH
sG

1/day
1/day
g COD/m3
g O2/m3
g NO3eN/m3
1/day
1/day
g O2/m3
g NH3eN/m3
Dimensionless

0.600
0.050
5
0.010
0.100
0.200
0.050
0.400
1.000
0.600

e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e

13.200
1.600
225
0.200
0.500
1.000
0.200
2.000

1.000

2.814
0.283
33.541
0.045
0.224
0.447
0.100
0.894
1.000
0.775

ka
kh
Kx
sh

m3/(g COD day)

g slowly biodeg. COD (g cell COD day)1
g slowly biodeg. COD (g cell COD)1
Dimensionless

0.080
3.000
0.030
0.400

2
Zts 
vln Cj t
dt
vln qi

(17)

and the overall sensitivity of the model results with respect to

parameter i is:
X

Ij;i

(18)

It should be noted that the sensitivity measures introduced

in Eqs. (17) and (18) are local sensitivities and are only applicable to the close neighborhood of the maximum likelihood
solution and do not intend to represent the global sensitivity.
These measures are intended to be loosely considered as
surrogates for the sensitivity with respect to the parameters.
As can be seen, the greatest sensitivity is with respect to
yield coefficient for autotrophs (YA) followed by decay rate of
heterotrophs (bH) yield coefficient for heterotrophs (YH) and
growth rate of autotrophs (mA). The main reason for the large

Table 2 e ASM1 constituents.

Constituent
Non-biodegradable soluble COD
Readily biodegradable substrate
Particulate non-biodegradable COD
Slowly biodegradable substrate
Heterotrophic biomass
Autotrophic biomass
Inert particulate product produced
Dissolved oxygen
Nitrate
Ammonia nitrogen
Soluble biodegradable organic nitrogen
Particulate biodegradable organic nitrogen

Symbol
SI
SS
XI
XS
XB,H
XB,A
XP
SO
SNO
SNH
SND
XND

Max

YH
YA
fP
ixB
ixP

Ii

Geometric
average

Unit
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g

COD/m3
COD/m3
COD/m3
COD/m3
COD/m3
COD/m3
COD/m3
O2/m3
N/m3
N/m3
N/m3
N/m3

0.080
3.000
0.030
0.400

overall sensitivity with respect to (YA) is its effect on ammonia.

This means that data on ammonia, particularly when a high
variation in ammonia is present, contains a great deal of information for the estimation of YA. bH has a large impact on
several constituents including Ss, Snd and Xnd. The effect of
and YH are spread among Ss and Snh while mA has the highest
effect on ammonia. It should be noted that sensitivity with
respect to a certain parameter does not translate directly into
high estimability for that parameter, as a large correlation
between the parameter and another parameter with a lower
sensitivity can result in a lower estimability. For example,
although the sensitivity with respect to YA is high, its estimability is low, as shown in Fig. 5. In addition, a wide level of
confidence is obtained for the parameter through inverse
modeling, indicating low confidence. The reason for this is the
high correlation of YA with mA and bA. As shown in Fig. 5, the
marginal posterior distributions of some parameters,
including KOH, YH, and bH, are narrow, in spite of wide ranges
attributed to them in their prior distribution and the noise
added to the result of the synthetic simulation. This is because
of their high level of sensitivity and the lack of correlation
with other parameters (Fig. 6). It can also be seen that for these
three parameters, the deterministically estimated parameter
value is close to the true value. The lack of sensitivity toward
Kno is due to the fact that the oxygen level in this numerical
experiment was kept high to ensure that denitrification would
not occur.
Fig. 6 shows the pair-wise scatter plot samples of parameter values, and Table 4 shows the Pearson correlation matrix
for the parameters. For some parameters, strong correlations
can be observed. For example, there is a near one correlation
between the substrate half-saturation constant, Ks and the
maximum specific growth rate for mH. This high correlation is
due to the fact that in this study, the readily available

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

261

Fig. 5 e Posterior distributions of model parameters (the dashed and solid vertical lines show the true and deterministic
parameter values, respectively). Dashed curves represent prior information.

substrate concentration, Ss, is always significantly smaller

than the half-saturation constant, Ks, making the heterotrophic growth predominantly substrate-limiting, in which case
the value of mH/Ks controls the rate of reaction. The strong
correlation between mH and Ks has also been noticed by others

(e.g. Lobry et al., 1992; Shaw et al., 2013). To test this hypothesis, another experiment was conducted, in which the hydraulic retention time of the bioreactor was reduced by
reducing the tank volume to 2000 m3 and changing the waste
flow rate to 1500 m3/d. This was done so that the

262

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Table 3 e Sensitivity matrix (overall rate of change of constituent concentrations with respect to the parameters).
Si
Ss
Xi
Xs
Xbh
Xba
Xp
So
Sno
Snh
Snd
Xnd
S

YH

YA

mH

bH

Ks

KO,H

KNO

mA

bA

KO,A

sG

0.00E00
1.05E-01
0.00E00
7.43E-03
5.06E-02
9.88E-03
8.08E-04
2.30E-02
4.11E-02
1.37E-01
1.04E-02
1.47E-02
4.00E-01

0.00E00
2.76E-03
0.00E00
4.11E-06
6.22E-07
5.32E-02
2.11E-07
1.40E-04
3.61E-04
5.16E-01
1.48E-06
6.78E-06
5.72E-01

0.00E00
6.34E-02
0.00E00
2.04E-07
1.34E-06
2.58E-07
2.63E-08
8.52E-05
1.20E-06
1.90E-05
2.78E-07
3.98E-07
6.35E-02

0.00E00
1.03E-01
0.00E00
5.96E-02
1.66E-02
2.25E-03
4.34E-03
4.50E-03
9.35E-03
3.07E-02
9.69E-02
9.09E-02
4.18E-01

0.00E00
3.52E-03
0.00E00
1.13E-08
7.44E-08
1.43E-08
1.46E-09
4.92E-06
6.66E-08
1.06E-06
1.54E-08
2.21E-08
3.53E-03

0.00E00
2.47E-05
0.00E00
4.92E-05
1.59E-09
1.18E-10
4.11E-11
4.17E-06
2.71E-04
7.30E-07
4.41E-08
4.91E-05
3.99E-04

0.00E00
4.15E-10
0.00E00
1.62E-10
1.54E-14
9.56E-17
3.38E-16
2.93E-11
2.00E-09
5.60E-12
1.48E-13
1.61E-10
2.77E-09

0.00E00
1.83E-03
0.00E00
9.54E-10
3.37E-08
2.47E-05
2.95E-10
2.86E-05
1.10E-04
3.27E-01
1.40E-08
2.24E-09
3.29E-01

0.00E00
4.68E-04
0.00E00
2.27E-05
3.57E-06
3.04E-02
2.15E-06
5.04E-07
1.38E-05
9.39E-02
9.07E-06
3.71E-05
1.25E-01

0.00E00
3.59E-05
0.00E00
1.83E-11
6.62E-10
4.86E-07
5.79E-12
4.60E-07
2.17E-06
6.43E-03
2.74E-10
4.35E-11
6.47E-03

0.00E00
4.45E-06
0.00E00
1.73E-12
9.42E-11
4.89E-12
1.86E-12
3.18E-07
2.16E-05
6.20E-08
1.93E-11
6.03E-12
2.64E-05

Fig. 6 e Pair scatter plots of the parameters of the model.

263

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Table 4 e Correlation matrix of ASM1 parameters.

YA
mH
bH
Ks
KO,H
KNO
mA
bA
KO,A
sG

0.147
0.006
0.376
0.016
0.517
0.012
0.186
0.196
0.053
0.158
YH

0.023
0.280
0.025
0.024
0.382
0.976
0.990
0.206
0.166
YA

0.006
1.000
0.021
0.394
0.032
0.015
0.063
0.049
mH

0.002
0.287
0.078
0.279
0.284
0.074
0.078
bH

0.025
0.394
0.034
0.017
0.064
0.046
Ks

concentration of readily biodegradable COD would vary between 14 g [COD]/m3 and 46 g [COD]/m3, and therefore, have a
value comparable to the half-saturation constant, Ks. Fig. 7
shows that although the correlation between mH and Ks is
still large, it is smaller than the original case, when Ss was
substantially smaller than Ks, thus indicating that the estimability of both parameters improved substantially. This shows
that the estimability of the parameters depends on the operational condition of the bioreactor, and that a better estimability can be obtained by collecting data from plants under
different operating conditions or designing experiments that
isolate the parameters in question. Although performing such
experiments may not be feasible on a full scale reactor, the
information made available in the posterior correlation analysis (Fig. 6) is useful for designing pilot experiments that has
more information content for specific parameters.
Fig. 8 shows the observed vs. modeled concentrations for
selected effluent constituents. The modeled concentrations
are the result of running the ASM1 model using 50 parameter
sets sampled from parameter posterior distributions. The 50
realizations are only for presentation purpose. A larger number of realizations is needed if the intention is to find confidence brackets for the predicted concentrations, for example
for the purpose of chance-constrained design or optimization.
The constituents not shown in this figure match the observed
data relatively closely. Although not shown here, the modeled
constituent concentration curves follow very closely the true
simulated concentration (prior to adding noise) that was used
to build the synthetic observed data that was created by
adding noise to it.

Fig. 7 e Scatter plot of posterior samples of mH versus Ks

and marginal posterior densities of Ks and mH for the high
substrate experiment. In this case, Ss varies between 14
and 46 g [COD]/m3.

0.118
0.008
0.002
0.055
0.047
KO,H

0.449
0.382
0.435
0.194
KNO

0.974
0.405
0.165
mA

0.207
0.153
bA

0.081
KO,A

Fig. 9 shows the normalized 95% credible intervals of ASM1

model parameters linearly mapped to a 0e100% scale, with 2.5
being the minimum and 97.5 the maximum prior range of the
xposterior;2:5 2:5
parameters
(horizontal
lines)
(e.g.
95xposterior;2:5  xprior;2:5 =xprior;97:5  xprior;2:5 ).The mapping is
done in order to make the presentation easier. The results are
shown for the case in which the true synthetic observed data
was corrupted by the original noise magnitude and for the
case in which the noise was increase by a factor of four, in
order to evaluate the effect of measurement uncertainty on
the estimability of the parameters. As can be seen, increasing
the noise by a factor of four does not affect the estimability of
the three parameters, which were originally highly estimable
(YH, bH, and KO,H), but it widens the credible intervals of some
of the less estimable parameters substantially.

5.

Summary and conclusions

In this paper, a Bayesian parameter estimation framework for

the calibration of ASM was presented. The method employs a
Markov Chain Monte Carlo based approach to derive the
posterior PDF of the model parameters. The advantages of the
proposed method are:
1) In contrast to deterministic methods, which provide point
estimates of the model parameters, the proposed method
provides the joint probability distribution of parameters
and their correlation. The PDFs can be used in a Monte
Carlo simulation for uncertainty analysis, chance
constraint design, and optimization of wastewater treatment plants.
2) The expert knowledge and degree of belief regarding the
parameters is incorporated in the parameter estimation as
prior functions. Following this approach, parameter
updating becomes possible as further data is collected.
3) Evaluation of the posterior correlations between the parameters and the constituenteparameter sensitivity matrix can guide us to the experimental conditions that result
in better estimability of the parameters.
Sensitivity analysis on the parameters indicates that for
this particular test case, the ASM1 model was most sensitive
to five of its 11 estimated parameters: YA, bH, YH, and mA,. The
estimability of the parameters was controlled by their
sensitivity and the posterior correlation between the parameters and other parameters, and the variability in the

264

w a t e r r e s e a r c h 5 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 2 5 4 e2 6 6

Fig. 8 e Observed vs. modeled concentrations for selected effluent components.

observed constituents to which the parameters exhibited

high sensitivity. The sensitivity depends on the ranges of
concentrations of the constituents in the reactor used for
model calibration. The results of the hypothetical simulation
presented in this paper show high correlations between
some of the parameters; for example, a posterior correlation
of close to one between mH and Ks, and therefore, a low
estimability for the two parameters was observed. However,

it was shown that operating the reactor in a different condition can reduce the correlation and enhance the estimability of the parameters.

Acknowledgement
This project was supported by the District of Columbia Water
and Sewer Authority (DCWASA) and partially by DC Water
Resources Research Institute (DCWRRI).

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data related to this article can be found at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2013.12.010

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