Water quality monitoring of improved water delivery systems in Northern Pakistan

The Water And Sanitation Extension program (WASEP) of Aga Khan Planning and Building Service Pakistan has been implementing water supply projects to improve the traditional water delivery systems for drinking purposes since 1998 aiming to reduce water borne diseases. In this connection 105 water supply systems have been implemented in rural communities of its program area with the financial assistance of KfW of Germany. Improved delivery systems were monitored for bacteriological quality through a series of sampling frequency from 1998 to 2002. The water quality monitoring program was developed locally consisting two phases, pre and post intervention. During pre intervention the Bacteriological contamination level was found to be very high in existing delivery systems with an average of 16% samples matching WHO guidelines for developing countries (0-10 E.coli/100 ml). However during post intervention the bacteriological quality of water at system level significantly improved with 86% of samples matching WHO guidelines for developing countries. Improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene behavior contributed to diarrhoeal reduction by more than 60%.