Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems and methods for reliably predicting water quality by characterizing the first water source with a first quality metric to provide a first measurement, treating the first water source with a first water treatment system to provide a first treated water supply, characterizing the first treated water supply with the first quality metric to provide a second measurement, determining differences, according to the first quality metric, between the first measurement and the second measurement, and determining an operating metric for the water treatment system based on the said differences.