ABSTRACT
The drinking-water safety framework presented by the World Health Organization and included in Brazilian legislation is based on the management of health risks, with the preparation of Water Safety Plans (WSP). In Brazil, about 29.9 million people live in rural locations, of which 72.7% depend on alternative supply solutions. Despite existing efforts in applying WSPs in small communities, there is still a gap in official materials directed to small-scale supply systems. This study contributes to fulfill this gap with a methodological framework to adapt existing evaluation tools aimed at improving WSPs to assess risk in the context of Brazilian alternative collective solutions (SACs) located in rural areas. The adapted proposed methodology identifies potential hazards having a SAC in the municipality of Travesseiro (state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) as a case study. The results of this process highlighted the importance of evaluating small SACs, where insufficient data on the supply infrastructure, scarcity of implemented control measures and the absence of monitoring at all levels are still common. We also explore how improvement planning within the scope of the construction of simplified WSPs can be integrated to produce data to support the instruments of water resources management and investments in sanitation. Finally, the results also support the creation of a national database to identify potential hazards and the argument for the extension of the assessment to the entire supply coverage, allowing such hazard mapping to inform decision-making.
Keywords
risk assessment; rural sanitation; small-scale drinking water supply
Thumbnail
Thumbnail
