Development and implementation of water safety plans for small water supplies in Bangladesh: benefits and lessons learned

Abstract

Water safety plans (WSPs) are promoted by the WHO as the most effective means of securing drinking water safety. To date most experience with WSPs has been within utility supplies, primarily in developed countries. There has been little documented experience of applying WSPs to small community-managed systems, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a case study from Bangladesh describing how WSPs can be developed and implemented for small systems. Model WSPs were developed through consultation with key water sector practitioners in the country. Simplified tools were developed to translate the formal WSPs into a format that was meaningful and accessible for communities to use. A series of pilot projects were implemented by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) across the country covering all major water supplies.The results show that WSPs can be developed and implemented for small community managed water supplies and improve the sanitary condition and water quality of water sources. Hygiene behaviour improved and household water quality showed a significant reduction in contamination. Chlorination was found to be important for some technologies, thus increasing the costs of water supply and raising important problems with respect to transfer to the communities. Simple tools for community monitoring were found to be effective in supporting better water safety management.

Water quality management for domestic rainwater harvesting systems in Fiji

“…Primarily, WSPs aim to prevent contamination of water from source, through distribution to the point of consumption and to give consumers greater involvement and control over maintaining water quality (Smith & Reed 2012). WSPs have shown signs of success when applied to public utilities (Gunnarsdottir et al 2012) and communal water supplies (Mahmud et al 2007). To date however, little research has been done to investigate the applicability of the WSP approach to self supply systems.…”

The Toledo Drinking Water Advisory: Suggested Application of the Water Safety Planning Approach

“…In this case, studies have suggested that the most cost effective investment would be in improving access to piped water supply at homes. Similarly, a study in Bangladesh found that risks of microbial contamination and incidence of diarrheal disease were reduced when water supply infrastructure was improved and safer water sources were chosen [33,35].…”

“…Newer versions of WSP have emerged since these pilot studies to reflect lessons learnt during the pilot stage. However, it has been observed in Bangladesh and other places that while there is an improvement in water quality and overall reduction in microbial contamination following implementation of WSP, it is difficult to achieve complete removal of indicator bacteria such as Thermo Tolerant Coliform Bacteria [35][36][37]. Robust monitoring tools and sustained surveillance are important to the success of these kinds of initiatives to remove Thermo Tolerant Bacteria [35].…”

Effective water safety management of piped water networks in low-income urban settlements

“…For water service provision to low-income urban settlements, water utilities need to provide encouragement and motivation, monitoring, participatory planning, capacity building, and specialist technical assistance (Harvey & Reed 2007). This support is more critical for implementing WSPs in water distribution systems in the low-income urban settlements, where community members have low technical skills (Mahmud et al 2007). There is need to carry out on-going capacity development at both the operators' and household levels (Tearfund 2011).…”

“…Documented experience on the implementation of Water Safety Plans (WSPs) has been mainly about water distribution systems managed by water utilities, mostly in the developed region of the world (Mahmud et al 2007). Currently, there is limited documented literature on the implementation of WSPs for small piped distribution systems, and less so for lowincome urban settlements.…”