Water Safety Planning and Water Quality Monitoring

One of the greatest risks to drinking-water safety is contamination with human pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, parasites and helminthes. Testing and monitoring of the microbial quality of drinking-water is therefore a key element to ensure drinking-water safety and to prevent waterborne infectious diseases, thereby protecting public health. Testing and monitoring should be applied as part of the WSP approach to managing drinking-water safety. WSP is a comprehensive risk assessment and risk management approach that encompasses all steps in water supply from source to tap (consumer). Water Safety Planning is part of the WHO framework ‘safe drinking water’. RIVM has initiated several capacity building programmes in limited resource settings.

Source to Tab and Back (S2TAB)

In Ethiopia, the Federal Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy (FMoWIE) published its strategic framework on climate resilient water safety in 2015 to establish an enabling environment. This is accompanied by guidelines for implementation of climate-resilient water safety plans (CR-WSPs). S2TAB is a public private partnership between Ethiopian and Dutch partners for improved financial and environmental sustainability of water services in the Metropolitan Region of Addis Ababa and Adama, two of the largest cities in Ethiopia. The overall goal of S2TAB is to secure water availability for Ethiopia’s core economic region and improve the quality and sustainability of water and sanitation services.   

In the project, RIVM will support the implementation of Climate Resilient Water Safety Plans and improve the Water Quality Monitoring at two drinking water companies. Furthermore, RIVM is building capacity at the national level, EPHI, in the detection of pathogens in water.