environmental engineering approach for rural community ...green.uprm.edu/pres/pres_mherrera.pdf ·...

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING APPROACH FOR RURAL

COMMUNITY WATER SUSTAINABILITY

Melissa Herrera1, Daniel Concepcion2, Sangchul Hwang1, Ismael Pagan-Trinidad1

1Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying, 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

June 18-20, 2008

The need to provide adequate water supply and sanitation tocommunities mainly in rural areas and developing countriesfor minimizing unsafe drinking water and inadequatesanitation related diseases is among the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.

The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA)provides improved drinking water and sanitation to 97% and55% of the population, respectively.

5.6% of the Puerto Rican population lives in rural areas, ofwhich 125,130 people do not have access to improveddrinking water and adequate sanitation.

INTRODUCTION

OUTLINE

Objectives.

First Rural (Non-PRASA) Community Water Supplyand sanitation Workshop.

Status Water Supply and Sanitation in rural PR.

Small Water Purification Systems.

Conclusions.

Workshop: Host a workshop with the components(federal and state agencies, municipals, andcommunity organizations) that are pertinent to thesubject.

GIS: Raise information bases to establish the state ofpresent situation and identify information that iscurrently unavailable.

Purification: Provide best management practices andtechnologies suitable for the water supply andsanitation of non-PRASA communities.

OBJECTIVES

Workshop date: February 25, 2008.

Sponsors: UPRM Chancellor’s Office andDepartment of Civil Engineering and Surveying.

FIRST RURAL (NON-PRASA) COMMUNITY WATER SUPPLY & SANITATION WORKSHOP

Collaborators: PR Department of Natural and EnvironmentalResources, PR Department of Health, PR DepartmentQuality Board, PRASA, EPA and University Institute forCommunity Development.


More than 200 people participated to the Workshop.



The main topics discussed in the workshop were:

Perspective of rural (Non-PRASA) communitywater supply and sanitation.

Status of rural water supply and sanitationsystems.

Public policies and best management practices

STATUS WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION IN PR

The GIS software package was used for thecreation of a digital database with requiredinformation for the selection of Non-PRASAcommunities with water quality problems that needtechnical support.

There are 280 Non-PRASA systems in PR.

Nearly 10.500 people have access to Non-PRASAsystems in the west part of Puerto Rico, that of which31.3% are located in Aguada, 17.7% in Yauco, 16.9% inAñasco and 16,4% in San German



38.7% of Non-PRASA systems located in the field ofstudy are supplied by groundwater, whilst the 93.5%are located in Puerto Rico rural areas and the 77.4% ofthe systems do not have any type of water treatment.

48.3% of Non-PRASA systems from the west partof the island do not accomplish the bacteriologicalstandards set up by EPA.


Treatment in the non-PRASA systems is dominatedby chlorination only.

Chlorination, via tablets, is the most commontreatment technique in all rural areas in PuertoRico.

A few of the systems in the small communities use offiltration or multiple treatment techniques.


STATUS OF SANITATION IN PR

In 2000, 100% of the population that live in urbanareas had access to any type of facility sanitation.However, the 59.8% had access to improved facilityof sanitation

STATUS OF SANITATION IN PR

In rural areas of PR, 94.2% of the population hadsanitation systems “in situ”, only 5.8% had accessto improved facility sanitation.

The selection of five communities with significantdrinking water problems was done by three steps:

1) To collect information: The data was collectedfrom several sources including public and privateinstitutions (EPA, PRASA, Health Department,etc) and the workshop.

IDENTIFICATION OF RURAL COMMUNITIES

2) Selection criteria: Communities were selected bymeans of a ranking matrix.The first step was identifying variables related to theproblems, which received a quantitative value(between 1-10) according to the positive or negativeincidence over water supply.


a) Population Density.

b) Infant Mortality.

c) Cancer Rate Incidence.

d) Education Level.

e) Type of Treatment.

f) State of system.

g) Bacteriological Quality

VARIABLES

a) POPULATION DENSITY

Rural (less 2.500 pers/km2) = 10Urban (between 2.500 – 3.000 pers/km2) = 1Ref: Department of Planning, PR

b) INFANT MORTALITY

More 16.5% = 10Between 9.1% to 16.5% = 5Less 9.1% (per 1000 infants) = 1Criteria established by the research team

c) CANCER RATE INCIDENCE

0-200.5=1 200.6-226.5=2 226.6-243.7=3 246.8-259.2=4 258.3-298.9=5 Criteria established by the research team

d) EDUCATION LEVEL

0.0-8.9 = 10 9.0-10.8 = 810.9–12.2 = 6 12.3-14.8 = 414.9-22.9 = 2Criteria established by the research team

e) Type of Treatment: Without treatment = 10Only disinfection = 5Filtration and disinfection = 1

f) State of System: Bad = 10Average = 5Good = 1

g) Bacteriological Quality: Does not meet standard = 10Meet standard = 1

OTHER VARIABLES

3) Chosen communities: Once the variables wereidentified and ranked in the matrix, there was aneed to sum up the individual values in order toobtain the final ranking.

Communities with high values were the oneswhich require an urgent attention.


RANKING MATRIX

Jurada community

SITE VISITS

Small drum filtration and disinfection units

ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS

In series or in parallelCurrently in series at 1 gpm.Water production depends on the

numbers of drums.Powered by solar energy.Flowrate, turbidity, specific

conductivity, pH, DO.Total and free residual chlorine

concentration at 1~2 ppm.Total and fecal coliforms,

heterotrophic bacteria at influentand effluent.

DRUM FILTRATION

It is necessary to update the information related tonon-PRASA systems because some of these systemshave recently been connected to PRASA between2004 and 2007

50% out of the 28 systems identified in the westernpart of Puerto Rico do not comply with themicrobiological quality standards, which indicates thatthese systems require an urgent technical support inorder to minimize the incidence of unsafe drinkingwater borne diseases.

CONCLUSIONS

The workshops allowed participants to gain an up todate global view of the water and sanitation problemssuffered in PR rural areas; different interventionstrategies for improving rural water supply systemswere identified and the integration of informationprovided by different institution was achieved

CONCLUSIONS

Jurada, Montana, Comunidad Aislada del Desarrollo,Lucas Lugo and Llanadas were communities selected.

For the water quality improvement in the selectedcommunities it is suggested the implementation of theexperimental drum filtration and disinfection units havebeen tested in a non-PRASA site (San German).

CONCLUSIONS

2nd Rural community water supply and sanitationworkshop

For identified communities, the following componentsare necessary to be developed:

Location of potential, reliable water resourcesPlace of drum treatment systemGPS in conjunction with GIS

Development of simpler drum purification systems

FUTURE WORK

Melissa HerreraGraduate studentDepartment of Civil Engineering and Surveying, UPRM787-8324040 x [email protected]

Sangchul Hwang, PhDAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Civil Engineering and Surveying,UPRM787-832-4040 x [email protected]

POINT OF CONTACT

QUESTIONS

environmental engineering approach for rural community ...green.uprm.edu/pres/pres_mherrera.pdf ·...

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