Investigation of Drinking Water Quality in Rural Areas in Chengjiang of Yunnan Province

Objective To investigate the drinking water quality in the rural areas in Chengjing and to provide the scientific data for making the plan of drinking water safety. Methods 40 villages and the county seat were investigated, 1 water source was randomly selected by proportional stratified sampling from each village for survey. Results 96.08% of the rural population drank the water from the centralized water supply system. As for the centralized water supply,11.06% of the rural population drank the completely treated water,73.21% drank the disinfected water,11.80% drank the raw water without any treatment. 3.92% of the rural population drank the water from the decentralized water supply system. 91.92% of the rural population drank the ground water and 4.16% drank the surface water. Only 4 in the 42 water samples were up to grade Ⅰ～Ⅲ standard. 11.43% for ground water and 0% for surface water were eligible. The eligible rate of bacterial indexes was 5.88% for water samples collected from the centralized water supply system and 25.00% for decentralized water supply system. In the present investigation,20 water quality parameters were tested and the bacteriological indexes in all of the unqualified water samples greatly exceeded the limits. Conclusion The microbial pollution of drinking water is serious in the investigated areas in Chengjiang. It is urgent to make the efficient measures to protect the water source.