Hygiene status of drinking water in rural areas of Guangdong Province in 2010

Objective To study the drinking water hygiene status in rural areas of Guangdong in 2010 in order to provide scientific basis for strengthening rural drinking water quality monitoring. Methods All agriculture-related counties in Guangdong Province were selected as survey points,and no less than 20 monitoring sites were selected by stratified random sampling method in each county.In dry season and rainy season,both treated water and tap water were collected in each centralized water supply and one water sample was collected from storage water device in each distributed water supply.Color,turbidity,and other indicators of the water samples were detected.The survey contents must cover water sources of all types,all water supply modes,categories of drinking water population,and water supply capacity in all villages of monitoring county. Results In the whole rural areas of Guangdong Province,there were 15 606 centralized water supplies and 1 673 639 distributed water supplies,which covered 63.98%(41.878 9 million/65.459 1 million) and 36.02%(23.580 2 million/65.459 1 million) of the whole rural population of the province,respectively.The water source of centralized water supply and distributed water supply were mainly spring(37.78%,5 896/15 606) and shallow well(80.13%,1 341 065/1 673 639),respectively.Overall,52.31%(8 164/15 606) of centralized water supplies had no any treatment measure for water and 51.24%(857 528/1 673 639) of distributed water supplies were hand pump.The qualified rates of water samples were 50.00%(1 895/3 790) in dry season and 63.73%(2 694/4 227) in rainy season.The qualified rates of water samples from centralized water supply and distributed water supply in dry season and rainy season were 53.33%(1 784/3 345) and 24.94%(111/445),66.61%(2 529/3 797) and 38.37%(165/430),respectively.The qualified rate for decentralized water was lower than that for centralized water(P0.01).During dry season and rainy season,the qualified rates were 54.28%(1 262/2 325) and 68.77%(1 806/2 626) for surface water,and 43.21%(633/1 465)and 55.47%(888/1 601)for underground water,respectively.The qualified rate for underground water was lower than that for surface water(P0.01).The three lowest qualified rates for rural water single indicator were fecal coliforms,pH value and bacterial count,with rates of 65.30%(2 566/3 930),87.80%(3 492/3 977),and 89.44%(3 514/3 929) in dry season,and 75.38%(3 239/4 297),90.09%(3 871/4 297) and 92.32%(3 966/4 296) in rainy season,respectively. Conclusion The current main problems of safe drinking water in rural areas in Guangdong Province which must be urgently solved are the low proportion of the centralized water supply and low qualified rate for drinking water.And microbiological pollution is the main influencing factor for drinking water quality.