Structure and apparatus for purifying and containing high clarity water used for direct contact recreational purposes

A structure for containing a water body having a surface of at least 3,000 m2 and a volume of least 5,000 m3 and for purifying low turbidity water of less than 2 NTU of the water body, and that is suitable for direct contact recreational purposes, wherein the structure comprises:

• A reduced centralized filtration system (20) that filters a volume of water (2) of the water body, wherein:
• The reduced centralized filtration system (20 comprises a number of bottom inlets (21) that is at least 30% less than the number of bottom inlets of a conventional swimming pool with a total area per bottom inlet of 400 ft2, the reduced centralized system (20) having at least fifteen (15) bottom inlets (21);
• and
• The reduced centralized filtration system (20) effectively filters at least 30% less volume within a 24-hour period than a conventional swimming pool filtration system which filters the complete water volume four times within a 24-hour period;
• A micro-renewal system (30) that operates permanently, which allows a micro-leakage of the water through a plurality of micro-leakage points (31) located in an inner surface of the structure (1), wherein a total micro-leakage volume refers to the total volume of water removed from the structure through the micro-leakage points (31) and is lower than the volume of water filtered by the reduced centralized filtration system (20), and wherein the plurality of micro-leakage points (31) are distributed throughout the inner surface of the structure (1) that is in contact with a soil or a filling material (3) under the structure,
• A dual-frequency skimmer system (40), comprising at least:
• A high-frequency reduced skimmer system HFSS (41) that periodically removes surface water from the structure (1), and sends such removed water into the low-cost reduced centralized filtration system (20);
• A low-frequency skimmer system LFSS (42) that removes surface water from the structure (1) during a high-renewal event such as a rain event or an increased addition of make-up water, wherein the LFSS is located within a section of the perimeter of the structure;
• wherein the dual-frequency skimmer system (40) has a Skimmer Operation Rate (SOR) of at least 10, wherein the SOR is defined as a ratio of operative hours of the HFSS (41) to the operative hours of the LFSS (42) within a 30-day period of time, as set forth in the following equation:
• Skimmer
• ⁢
• Operation
• ⁢
• Rate
• ⁢
• (
• SOR
• )
• =
• Hours
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• Operation
• of
• ⁢
• HFSS
• Hours
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• Operation
• of
• ⁢
• LFSS
• ≥
• 10
• A make-up water system that introduces a water flow into the water body that is higher than a volume of water lost through natural evaporation of the water body in addition to the water removed from the structure through the micro-renewal system, wherein the make-up water system is arranged and configured to provide a water flow given the following equation:
• Make-Up Flow≥Evaporation Flow+Micro-Renewal Flow.