Assessing water and water infrastructure quality in community-managed water supply systems in northern Pakistan

Abstract

This research assesses the quality of water and water supply infrastructure under the Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP) in Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan. Water samples were collected from 26 randomly selected rural and urban WASEP projects and 12 control sites. Results show that 94% of rural and 83% of urban water samples from WASEP projects conformed with WHO standards for drinking water with no Escherichia coli colonies overall compared with 8% of rural and 0% of urban control sites. This corresponds with higher water infrastructure scores for WASEP projects based on engineering audits of water at intake, system, and network level. These findings demonstrate the importance of water infrastructure design for the delivery of clean drinking water, and the role of the WASEP model of community water management in improving the delivery of potable water. HIGHLIGHTS The approach was unique in solving rural water supply issues.; Community Involvement plays a pivotal role in the success of water supply schemes.; Upscaling of the concept rural water supply rationale to the urban setting was a major challenge.; Water infrastructure was also assessed on a quantitative scale besides quality of water.; Comparative assessment of two types of water supply projects provided important data.;

Keywords

• drinking water
• gilgit-baltistan
• pakistan
• wasep
• water infrastructure
• water quality