Inventory of water quality monitoring techniques suitable for Indian communities

“The overall objective of the Water4India project is to optimize drinking water treatment and supply in Indian communities facing challenges in terms of available water quantity and quality. Water quality monitoring contributes in several ways to this objective. This document describes how the various objectives of water quality monitoring described in report D4.2 lead to the requirements of monitoring techniques to meet these objectives within the project and within India. Objectives of monitoring can be awareness raising, operational, compliance, health risk assessment and assessment of treatment efficacy. The characteristics of various monitoring techniques were linked to the various objectives. Monitoring techniques need to be sufficiently sensitive to assess the health impact. However, there are also other technical and socio-economic criteria such as accuracy, specificity, cost, safety and ease of use. These needs may vary with the different objectives. Although microbial health risk emerging at the household level is highly relevant in rural India, routine monitoring at the household level isn’t feasible due to costs, safety and complexity of methods. However, tests can be used as part of education and awareness raising at the household level. For awareness raising, accuracy is less important than safety, ease of use and costs, whereas accuracy is very important for evaluating treatment and costs are less of an issue. These considerations were brought together in a framework to evaluate monitoring techniques. The framework was applied to a range of microbial and chemical field test kits and laboratory techniques. Feedback from experience with some of the monitoring techniques to assess the performance of the Water4India solutions highlights the need for capacity building and an adequate supply chain for equipment and materials. This document can be used to select evaluated techniques and to evaluate alternative techniques that may be introduced during the project.”

(Citaat: Smeets, P.W.M.H., Sjerps, R.M.A., Bäuerlein, P.S., Hulsmann, A.D., Maor, A.Z., Barona, A., Cadena, E., Shiva, Y. – W4In Inventory of water quality monitoring techniques suitable for Indian communities (D4.1 updated) Water4India Project EU Grant 308496, (2016))