Assessment of safety in drinking water supply system of Birjand city using World Health Organization’s water safety plan

Abstract

Background: The conventional method for managing drinking water quality is not a suitable preventive strategy for protecting public health. A water safety plan (WSP) presents a systematic approach to ensuring the health and quality of drinking water. This study assessed the drinking water supply system safety of Birjand city using the WHO's WSP. Methods: This investigation employed the WSP-QA Tool and the WSP manual of the WHO and the AWI. For this purpose, software checklists were prepared and, after confirmation of content and face validity, completed based on Birjand's water and wastewater company records and interview with company's experts. Data was analyzed using WSP-QA Tool. Results: From total possible 440 points for full use of the program and 328 points of the studied phases, a score of 190 was acquired, indicating a 43.18% coordinated implementation with WSP. System description and management procedures showed the maximum and minimum percentages of congruency with the WSP of 87.5% and 25%, respectively. Among the components of the water supply system, water resource had the most attention. Conclusion: As regards the percentage of overall WSP-phase implementation and the low attention given to some key parameters of the water supply system, such as risk assessment and management procedures, the system currently enjoys a relatively medium level of safety. However, the high points of some phases such as system description, operational monitoring and verification enhance the system's flexibility for changing the current approach of qualitative management to the WSP.

Accomplishment of water safety plan using quality assurance tool in 2020-2021: A case study in a western city of Gilan province, Iran

“…System description with 100% and management methods with 50% showed the highest and lowest compliance with WSP, respectively. A study by Eslami et al, the steps of system description and management procedures obtained the highest and lowest scores with 87.5% and 25%, respectively, which is consistent with the results of the present study (28).…”

“…This plan is based on a general risk assessment that can strongly affect the quality of water distributed to the consumer. Vietnam has implemented a water safety plan in its municipal water supply systems since 2008, and the results of this plan showed an increase in water quality, an increase in customer satisfaction, and a reduction in water-borne diseases (28). Therefore, in the present study, WSP has been used to identify the risks and potential hazards threatening water safety in the supply system of Talesh.…”

“…When there is no remedial action, unexpected events may occur in the water supply systems. These instructions are prepared by skilled personnel and are edited and updated in times of crisis (28). Talesh water supply system consists of supply sources, transmission lines, distribution network, reservoirs and water consumption point.…”

Comprehensive Risk Assessment of Health-Related Hazardous Events in the Drinking Water Supply System from Source to Tap in Gaza Strip, Palestine

“…More recently, in the WSP workshop in Berlin in 2014 for the assurance provision of safe drinking water to citizens in the twenty-first century, the WSP also was approved as a systematic and valuable managerial tool [12]. Moreover, several countries have been welcomed the adoption of the WSP as national legislation to achieve outstanding successes in managing DWSSs [9,[13][14][15].…”

Increasing convergence rate in two-objective optimization of water distribution network with engineering judgment

“…It handles the transfer of water from a reservoir to the consumer and consists of a water supply, consumers, distribution pipes, valves and pumps. This infrastructure provides the basic needs of a society (2,3). Researches are interested in the optimization of WDNs (4).…”