Assessing urban water supply system in Northeastern Thailand: Water quality and authority organization

Abstract

Providing safe water supply is one of the important public health priorities, the water quality of water supply is closely associated with human health. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of water in the urban water supply systems and their authority organizations including the existing performance of the water supply systems and their organizations. The sampling locations were covered by 4 cities, namely Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat), Chaiyaphum, Buriram and Surin provinces. There was the total of 13 sampling site locations of the urban water supply systems which are owned by the provincial and municipal waterworks authorities. Water samples of each sampling site location were collected from water resources, storage tanks, and household water taps, and analyzed for various parameters. The results showed that the water quality of the urban water supply systems had met the water quality standards for the parameters: turbidity, TSS, TDS, Nitrate, and total coliform, except color and iron due to the retention time of the sedimentation process which was not the proper range. Besides, there were problems with the residual chlorine in storage tanks and household tap water which was lower than the standard limit and might affect population health. There was no difference between the performance of the provincial and municipal waterworks authorities. The outcome of this study can support the improvement of the urban water supply systems and their authority organizations.