Drinking Water Supply and Water Quality in Rural Areas of Shaoguan in 2012

Objective To understand the status of rural water supply and the water quality,and to provide references for further improvement of rural drinking water safety.Methods Data of water supply and water quality were collected from water quality monitoring network and were statistically analyzed.Results There were 2 218 central water supply facilities in the whole rural areas of Shaoguan,which covered 66.44% of the whole rural population.Only 0.90% of central water supply facilities were equipped with complete process treatment facilities and the proportion of those with sediment-filter treatment were 42.88%.As a whole,55.00% of central water supply equipped with no treatment measure.There were totally 29 775 decentralized water supply facilities,covering 33.56% of the population in the area.The facilities were mainly shallow wells(71.86%).The total qualified rates of 1 254 water samples were 43.94%,and that of in dry season and in rainy season were respectively 46.82% and 41.05%,with statistical significance between the two(χ2=4.224,P0.05).The qualified rates for total coliforms,thermotolerant coliform bacteria,turbidity,total numbers of colony and pH were respectively 52.79%,54.21%,82.77%,89.55% and 92.98 %,respectively.Conclusion The proportion of decentralized water supply is still considerably high in rural areas in Shaoguan,while the qualified rate of the water quality is low.Exceeding microorganism is the main pollution route for drinking water quality.Thus,the construction of rural drinking water projects and water quality management should be timely strengthened.