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Unsafe to drink? Perspectives on water quality among NGOs, commercial firms and consumers

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conference contribution
posted on 2018-02-12, 15:10 authored by Richard Bauer, Thomas Wildman
Ensuring a reliable supply of potable water for people affected by conflicts or disasters is crucial for daily living and to prevent disease. For humanitarian NGOs and government water service providers, potability is usually defined as water free from chemical, physical and bacterial contaminants. Water consumers, however, typically define water quality from a less technical view. For the end user, the two main questions about potability are: Does the water taste good? And do my neighbours drink the same water as I do? As part of an ongoing NGO response to facilitating access to safe water by urban refugees and low income communities in Jordan and Palestine, water market assessment surveys were conducted in 2013. A key lesson emerging from both studies was the need for active engagement with local water service providers to help promote a shared understanding of the importance of safe drinking water.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Research Unit

  • Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)

Published in

WEDC Conference

Citation

BAUER, R. and WILDMAN, T., 2014. Unsafe to drink? Perspectives on water quality among NGOs, commercial firms and consumers. IN: Shaw, R.J., Anh, N.V. and Dang, T.H. (eds). Sustainable water and sanitation services for all in a fast changing world: Proceedings of the 37th WEDC International Conference, Hanoi, Vietnam, 15-19 September 2014, 5pp.

Publisher

© WEDC, Loughborough University

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This is a conference paper.

Other identifier

WEDC_ID:21858

Language

  • en

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    WEDC 37th International Conference

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