Significance of hydrologic aspects on RBF performance - Everything is linked to everything else

Clogging of the riverbed is still an important factor causing uncertainness in the planning stage of riverbank filtration plants. Several attempts have been made to develop tools, which are suitable to predict this process. But up till now, these tools are only a slight help for the engineering of riverbank filtration plants. On the other hand there exists a lot of experience about clogging from the operation of riverbank filtration plants. But to utilize this experience for a new plant, the hydrological and morphological aspects of the river and the aquifer have to be analyzed carefully to create a basis for the transfer of available knowledge. This paper deals with the relevant properties of rivers, concerning riverbank filtration: the runoff regime and the runoff dynamics, the river-aquifer interactions, the stream processes - erosion, transport and deposition - and the progress of the clogging process itself.