Assessment of Drinking Water Quality from Source to Household Storage Containers in Kachisi town, West Shewa, Ethiopia

Abstract

A wide range of human and natural processes affect the quality of fresh waters and diseases related to contamination of drinking water constitute a major burden on human health. Thus, this study was conducted to assess the quality of drinking water supplied to Kachisi town using selected physicochemical and bacteriological parameters. A total of 60 water samples in triplicate were collected from boreholes, water reservoirs, household taps and storage containers in the households between October, 2019 and February, 2020. The physiochemical parameters were measured using HACH HQ440d multi meter and portable digital spectrophotometer (DR/6000) according to HACH instruction and bacteriological parameters were analyzed using the membrane filtration technique. The study results indicated that temperature and pH of the water samples were in the range of 18.77 ⁰C and 21.4 ⁰C, and 7.05 and 7.73, respectively. Total dissolved solids fell between 93 mg/l and116 mg/l while electrical conductivity records ranged between 185µS/cm and 232 µS/cm. The concentrations of Iron, nitrate and phosphate were in the range between 0.01-0.26 mg/l, 2.20-5.72 mg/l and 0.12-0.76 mg/l, respectively. Total Coliforms loadalso varied from 1CFU/100ml to 2CFU/100ml in samples collected from boreholes and reservoirs, from 1CFU/100ml to 12CFU/100ml in tap water samples and from 6CFU/100ml to 22CFU/100ml in samples from storage containers in the households. Fecal Coliform was negative in the water samples collected from boreholes, reservoirs and household taps while it was detected in 25% of the samples collected from household storage containers in the rangeof 3CFU/100ml to 5CFU/100ml. The detection of Total Coliforms in all water samples and Faecal Coliforms in some of the household containers samples might be attributed to absence of disinfection, lack of regular supervision of the system, poor water management and lack of safe water storage and handling practices.