Comparison of Household Level Drinking Water Treatment Technologies Using Analytic Hierarchy Process 

Abstract

Almost 20 percent of the world's population lacks access to safe drinking water (DW) and basic sanitation. The Target 10 of United Nations Millennium Development Goals is "to reduce by half, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe DW, by 2015". In order to reach the goal, many countries are investing in water treatment systems in a big way. However, it has been proved that household system is more effective than centralized systems as it ensures quality of DW at the point of consumption. The current study compares household level drinking water treatment technologies for urban and rural areas of India using Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP), a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) tool. Traditional and commercial technologies suitable for urban and rural households from the consumer perspective have been considered. Preferences given for the choice of technologies are based on literature review, household level survey, market survey and semi-structured interviews with various governmental and non-governmental officials. The technologies considered for the current study are not only suitable to both urban and rural areas, but affordable (costing up to `10,000 OR $162) to middle and lower middle class households. The technologies selected include alum, boiling, alum-boiling-straining, SODIS, ceramic candle filters, Biosand filters, Terafil filter, Pure it, Tata Swach, and Aquaguard Compact. Boiling and Aquaguard were top ranked for the urban areas whereas SODIS and boiling were ranked high for the rural areas. The ranking has been found to be sensitive to the attributes such as the initial cost, maintenance cost, durability, reliability and the ability to treat contaminants of the candidate technologies.