Evaluation of water safety plan implementation at provincial water utilities in Vietnam

Development of a tool to support operationalising water safety plans: experiences from a national water utility in Ghana

Since their incorporation into the 2004 version of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality (GDWQ), Water Safety Plans (WSPs) continue to be the pre-eminent process for the delivery of safe drinking water to consumers. WSPs achieve this by prioritising proactive, rather than reactive, management of risks to drinking water quality. Since the use of WSPs was incorporated into the GDWQ, a range of supporting resources have been produced to assist water suppliers in preparing WSPs. Producing a robust WSP is an important first step in the management of risk, but in many cases, the implementation of WSPs presents significant challenges, particularly in relation to the implementation of Module 5 (implementing improvements) and Module 6 (monitoring of control measures). To address barriers to WSP implementation, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), in a peer-to-peer partnership with two Australian water utilities, developed a pilot WSP implementation strategy for one of the company's drinking water supply systems. One of the outputs of the collaboration was the development of a framework for operationalising water safety planning, which incorporates basic guidance for embedding the WSP within routine operations, in order to ensure the safe management of drinking water.

Sanitary inspection and microbial health risks associated with enteric bacteria in groundwater sources in Ilara-Mokin and Ibule-Soro, Nigeria

This study set out to determine the sanitary risk scores and microbial health risks associated with wells and boreholes in Ilara-Mokin and Ibule-Soro, Nigeria. Water samples (n = 96) were collected over a period of five months to determine the levels of enteric bacteria and to perform a Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) of drinking water quality. Sanitary risk scores revealed `medium' and `low' overall risks for the wells and boreholes, respectively. Three risk factors (faulty fence; small apron; pollution sources) exhibited high significant (p < 0.01) association with the presence of E. coli and thermotolerant coliforms in water samples from the wells. E. coli and Salmonella ranged from 1.82 to 2.28 and 2.15 to 2.63 log10 CFU/100 ml respectively in water from the wells, but were below detection limit in water from the boreholes. Shigella and Campylobacter were detected in all water samples. Estimated risks of infection associated with Shigella (2.1 × 10-2 to 2.3 × 10-1) were higher than those of Campylobacter (6.7 × 10-2 to 1.9 × 10-1) and Salmonella (1.9×10-3 to 5.6×10-3). Adaption of water safety plans may be advantageous in these settings, since intentional ingestion of water from the wells and boreholes may pose potential risks of diarrheal illness to humans.

Supporting the implementation of drinking water management systems in New South Wales, Australia

Since 2010, New South Wales (NSW) Health has assisted local water utilities to develop and implement risk-based drinking water management systems based on the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality. This support has benefited regional communities, and especially smaller utilities, by helping to identify and control risks. NSW Health's support projects have resulted in statistically significant improvements across many elements of drinking water management system implementation. Through this program of support, NSW Health has identified possible infrastructure and operational needs and assessed implementation of drinking water management systems. In parallel, NSW Health has worked to assess the risk from Cryptosporidium in drinking water supplies and to develop a formal audit program. Findings from the NSW Health support program informed the development of two NSW Government programs and the commitment of more than $1 billion to help local water utilities address public health and other critical needs. The introduction of risk-based drinking water management systems has driven incremental improvement in drinking water quality management across the state of NSW.