scholarly journals Drinking-water safety – challenges for community-managed systems

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (S1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Rizak ◽  
Steve E. Hrudey
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
Water System ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Warning Signs ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Waterborne Disease ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Weather Events

A targeted review of documented waterborne disease outbreaks over the past decades reveals some recurring themes that should be understood by drinking-water suppliers. Evidence indicates the outbreaks are often linked to some significant change in conditions that provides a sudden challenge to a water system. Severe weather events, such as heavy rainfall or runoff from snow melt, as well as treatment process and system changes, are common risk factors for drinking-water outbreaks. Failure to recognise warning signs and complacency are important contributors to drinking water becoming unsafe. Drinking-water suppliers must focus on competence and vigilance in maintaining effective multiple barriers appropriate to the challenges facing the drinking-water system. Understanding the risk factors and failure modes of waterborne disease outbreaks is an essential component for effective management of community drinking-water supplies and ensuring the delivery of safe drinking-water to consumers.

scholarly journals A systematic literature review of the enabling environment elements to improve implementation of water safety plans in high-income countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Baum ◽  
Jamie Bartram
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
High Income ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Waterborne Disease ◽  
Enabling Environment ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Water Safety Plans ◽  
Context Specific

Abstract Effective risk management helps ensure safe drinking water and protect public health. Even in high-income countries, risk management sometimes fails and waterborne disease, including outbreaks, occur. To help reduce waterborne disease, the WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality recommend water safety plans (WSPs), a systematic preventive risk management strategy applied from catchment to consumer. Since the introduction of WSPs, international guidelines, national and state legislation, and local practices have facilitated their implementation. While various high-income OECD countries have documented successes in improving drinking water safety through implementing WSPs, others have little experience. This review synthesizes the elements of the enabling environment that promoted the implementation of WSPs in high-income countries. We show that guidelines, regulations, tools and resources, public health support, and context-specific evidence of the feasibility and benefits of WSPs are elements of the enabling environment that encourage adoption and implementation of WSPs in high-income countries. These findings contribute to understanding the ways in which to increase the uptake and extent of WSPs throughout high-income countries to help improve public health.

scholarly journals Incorporation of the Multiple Barrier Approach in drinking water risk assessment tools

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Michael Summerscales ◽  
Edward A. McBean
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Contamination ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Drinking Water Contamination ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Risk Assessment Tools ◽  
Developed Nations

A number of existing risk assessment tools make reference to, or incorporate, a Multiple Barrier Approach to drinking water safety. Three waterborne disease outbreaks that occurred in developed nations were used as case studies to test a selected set of risk assessment tools. The outbreaks were used to determine how well the risk assessment tools identify hazards and vulnerabilities associated with different barriers to drinking water contamination.

Evaluation of Risk Assessment Tools to Predict Canadian Waterborne Disease Outbreaks

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ian Michael Summerscales ◽  
Edward A. McBean
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Waterborne Disease ◽  
Drinking Water Contamination ◽  
Risk Assessment Tools

Abstract A number of risk assessment tools and guidance documents have been developed by regulatory and nongovernmental bodies to enable risk assessment of drinking water systems. To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of available risk assessment tools, three of the existing risk assessment tools were applied to waterborne disease outbreaks in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and Walkerton, Ontario, to determine whether the risk assessment tools would have indicated that the water systems were at risk of failure. Both of these outbreaks are sufficiently well documented to allow testing of the risk assessment tools. Both of the outbreaks occurred partly due to vulnerabilities that prevented the respective water systems from having effective multiple barriers to drinking water contamination. The risk assessment tools generally identified the hazards that resulted in contamination of the source water. However, the different tools had different levels of success in identifying vulnerabilities in the downstream barriers such as treatment processes and water quality monitoring activities. None of the risk assessment tools successfully incorporated the interdependent nature of the multiple barriers of drinking water safety.

Achieving safe drinking water — risk management based on experience and reality

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (NA) ◽  
pp. 169-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Rizak ◽  
Steve E. Hrudey
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Waterborne Disease ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Developed World

Over recent years there have been a number of high profile water quality incidents in the developed world that have drawn attention to the safety of our drinking water supplies and how we are managing our systems. An analysis of these and other waterborne disease outbreaks reveals some important themes about the underlying causes of outbreak failures and some broader issues about the role of drinking water quality monitoring for the protection of public health. Experience has shown that waterborne disease outbreaks in affluent countries almost universally demonstrate that the outbreaks were eminently preventable and, in most circumstances, the solutions for assuring safety from the risks of drinking water are not complex and rely not so much on implementing stringent water quality standards, as on improved system management and operation. Given these themes, assuring drinking water safety requires a commitment to a comprehensive approach to risk management, one that focuses on prevention and better measures of control extending from catchment and source protection through to the consumer. There is a growing international consensus moving towards this strategy for assuring safe drinking water, which provides the prospects of making water even more safe than it currently is most places in the developed world.

Insights into the challenges of risk characterization using drinking water safety plans

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 321-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Post ◽  
Emma Thompson ◽  
Edward McBean
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water System ◽  
Drinking Water Treatment ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Water Safety Plan ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Water Safety Plans ◽  
High Degree

Risk assessment methodologies, specifically water safety plans (WSPs), provide a water operator with a greater awareness of the drinking water system and the hazards that may occur. This brings key issues to the forefront and promotes a proactive approach to drinking water safety. This paper identifies the challenges in completing a WSP and evaluates the robustness of procedures. Experts knowledgeable in drinking water treatment were asked to complete Alberta’s Drinking Water Safety Plan template for a hypothetical community. Findings from use of a condensed version of the WSP are also described, and the resulting risk scores obtained from both methodologies are compared. A high degree of variability between experts’ responses was observed from both; however, trends between responses show that the condensed WSP makes it easier to compare hazards relative to each other, to determine key risk areas that warrant more attention.

Study on Mechanism Design of Rural Drinking Water Safety Engineering Project Financing Guarantee

2013 ◽  
Vol 361-363 ◽  
pp. 674-681
Author(s):  
Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Mechanism Design ◽  
Safety Engineering ◽  
Project Financing ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Public Fund ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Project Construction ◽  
Set Up

As more and more non-public fund entering rural drinking water safety engineering project market; it becomes very necessary to built rural drinking water safety engineering project guarantee mechanism. This paper proposes three steps of mechanism design. Firstly, history data is used to fit multivariate linear equation set up describing relationship between bank loss and key risk factors. Secondly, guarantee fee is calculated through model regression, which is threefold of possible bank loss. Thirdly, guarantee fee is adjusted according to variety of key risk factor in the process of project construction and operating.

Implementation of Alberta's drinking water safety plans

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Reid ◽  
K. Abramowski ◽  
A. Beier ◽  
A. Janzen ◽  
D. Lok ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Effective Action ◽  
Main Element ◽  
Quality And Safety ◽  
Biological Parameters ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Regulatory Approach ◽  
Water Safety Plans ◽  
Safety Of Drinking Water

Traditionally, the regulatory approach to maintaining the quality and safety of drinking water has largely been a prescriptive one based on the ability of any given supply to meet standards set for a number of different chemical and biological parameters. There are a number of issues around the assumptions and the limitations of a sampling and analysis regime. The basis for such regimes is essentially reactive rather than proactive and, consequently, the cause of the concern may already have impacted consumers before any effective action can be taken. Environment and Sustainable Resource Development has developed a template for recording drinking water safety plans together with guidance notes to help complete them. The template has been developed in MS-Excel and has been designed in a straightforward step-wise manner with guidance on the completion of each sheet. It includes four main risk tables covering each main element of water supply which are pre-populated with commonly found ‘generic’ risks and these are carefully assessed before considering what action is required to deal with significant risks. Following completion of the risk tables, key risks are identified and the interventions required to bring them into control.

A fatal waterborne disease epidemic in Walkerton, Ontario: comparison with other waterborne outbreaks in the developed world

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.E. Hrudey ◽  
P. Payment ◽  
P.M. Huck ◽  
R.W. Gillham ◽  
E.J. Hrudey
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Reference Source ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Public Inquiry ◽  
Contaminated Drinking Water ◽  
The Government ◽  
Safety Of Drinking Water ◽  
Developed World

An estimated 2,300 people became seriously ill and seven died from exposure to microbially contaminated drinking water in the town of Walkerton, Ontario, Canada in May 2000. The severity of this drinking water disaster resulted in the Government of Ontario calling a public inquiry by Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor to address the cause of the outbreak, the role (if any) of government policies in contributing to this outbreak and, ultimately, the implications of this experience on the safety of drinking water across the Province of Ontario. The circumstances surrounding the Walkerton tragedy are an important reference source for those concerned with providing safe drinking water. Although some circumstances are obviously specific to this epidemic, others are uncomfortably reminiscent of waterborne outbreaks that have occurred elsewhere. These recurring themes suggested the need for attention to broad issues of drinking water security and they present the challenge for how drinking water safety can be managed to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Rapid drinking water safety estimation in cities: Piloting a globally scalable method in Cochabamba, Bolivia

2019 ◽  
Vol 654 ◽  
pp. 1132-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Rocha-Melogno ◽  
Rebecca Yoo ◽  
Osvaldo Broesicke ◽  
Achilles Kallergis ◽  
José Garcia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Drinking Water Safety ◽  
Safety Estimation
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