Seasonal coagulation objectives for atypical North-China water treatment plant with micro-polluted and high alkalinity source waters are proposed in this paper. These are based on a yearlong data collection period where raw water characteristics, trihalomethanes formation potential (THMFP) and coagulation features were investigated using a jar test procedure, resin absorption and ultrafiltration fractionations. Three approaches beyond simply increasing the coagulant dose were used to achieve optimized coagulation. One is coagulation by adjusting the pH of the raw water when metal salt coagulants (FeCl3 and AlCl3) are used. At pH levels of about 5.0 for FeCl3 and about 5.8 for AlCl3, the highest removal of natural organic matter (NOM) was obtained, which is twice that without pH control. The second is enhanced coagulation through coagulant optimization based on raw water characteristics. A high efficient composite polyaluminum chloride (HPAC) coagulant was developed for the water taking the advantages of polyaluminum chloride (PACl) and other additives. HPAC exhibited 30% more efficiency than AlCl3, FeCl3 and polyaluminum chloride (PACl) in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal and was also very effective in turbidity removal. The third is enhanced softening with coagulant addition. Higher removal of NOM is achieved by enhanced softening with coagulant addition conditions as compared with conventional coagulation at natural pH. Especially with PACl addition, it can enhance the formation of Mg(OH)(2) precipitate and remove NOM efficiently at a relatively lower pH range (pH < 10). By this approach, the pH for enhanced softening can be decreased significantly into a practical operation pH range for high-hardness water at a treatment plant. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.