Helping hand for small water treatment plants

Abstract

Drinking water Water infrastructure in South Africa is generally well developed in urban areas. However, rural water treatment plants are often wrought with technical and management problems leading to the production of drinking water of an inferior quality with potential health consequences for affected communities. To unravel the intricacies around the operational and management parameters impinging on the disinfection efficiency of these small water treatment plants the WRC funded a study involving 181 such plants (mostly municipal owned) across seven provinces. The goal was to determine the nature and full extent of the problems currently being experienced so as to provide practical and user-friendly guidelines for intervention. The study, led by Prof Maggie Momba from the Tshwane University of Technology, gathered information on the methods of disinfection applied, equipment employed, performance of the treatment plants, knowledge and skills of the operators as well as other technical and management issues, among others.

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