NMMP NEWS
Home Page of the National Microbiological Water Quality Monitoring Programme	October 1997

THE NATIONAL MICROBIOLOGICAL
WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROGRAMME
-- AN OVERVIEW

Lilly Zingitwa

• INTRODUCTION
• WHY A NATIONAL MICROBIOLOGICAL MONITORING PROGRAMME?
• NMMP PRODUCTS
• HOW WILL WE MEASURE FAECAL CONTAMINATION?
• WHO WILL BENEFIT?
• DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROGRAMME
• A NATIONAL UNDERTAKING

INTRODUCTION

The South African Department of Water and Sanitation is currently developing a national microbiological monitoring programme to supplement and extend its existing water quality monitoring and assessment programmes.

UNICEF estimates that, throughout the world, nearly four million children die of water-related diseases each year. Water-related diseases include gastro-enteritis, cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, salmonellosis and hepatitis. Although the mortality of many waterborne infections is low, their impact on individuals, social structures and economies is devastating.

Often, the pathogens that cause water-related diseases are excreted by infected individuals, who show no outward sign of disease. These pathogens reach water environments via sewage, surface runoff or through the soil. They may remain viable for days, weeks or even months. Use of contaminated water for drinking, recreation or irrigation may result in infection of consumers. Waterborne diseases profoundly influence the fitness of water for use, so microbiological safety is a most important water quality determinant.

WHY A NATIONAL MICROBIOLOGICAL MONITORING PROGRAMME?

South Africa currently has no coherent source of information for assessing health risks related to the use of surface and ground water resources that may be contaminated by faecal pollution. As its mission, DWAF accepts responsibility as custodian of the limited national water resource. This responsibility compels DWAF to manage the quantity, quality and reliability of South Africa's water resources to achieve optimum, long-term and environmentally sustainable benefit for the nation from their use.

In support of this mission, the Department has to:

• assess the potential health risk caused by faecal pollution of water resources
• manage the sources of faecal pollution of water resources
• assess and manage compliance of effluents and stormwater discharges to disposal requirements
• assess and manage product and service quality where water is supplied to consumers.

NMMP PRODUCTS

The concept of fitness for use is central to water quality management in South Africa and therefore to the design and implementation of water quality monitoring programmes. The microbiological monitoring programme will:

• provide the management information required to assess and manage the potential health risks related to the faecal pollution of South Africa's surface water resources used for drinking, recreation and irrigation
• provide information on the status of, and trends in, microbiological quality of surface water resources due to faecal pollution
• indicate the effectiveness of measures to protect water against faecal pollution.

HOW WILL WE MEASURE FAECAL CONTAMINATION?

A variety of methods have been developed for assessment of the microbiological safety of water. The detection of many pathogens, notably viruses and protozoan parasites, requires complicated and expensive procedures. In routine quality monitoring, analysing water for every pathogen that may be present is therefore impractical. Since most waterborne pathogens are excreted in faeces, routine monitoring is generally based on nonpathogenic microorganisms that typically occur in faeces and are detectable by simple, rapid, safe and economic techniques. A group of bacteria known as faecal coliforms meet these requirements. Faecal coliforms are used throughout the world, not only for routine monitoring of the microbiological safety of water, but also for testing the efficiency of water treatment and disinfection processes. Although faecal coliforms only suggest faecal pollution, they show the potential presence of waterborne pathogens.

DWAF will use faecal coliforms, determined according to specified methods, as the basis for assessment of faecal pollution in the national monitoring programme. Where necessary, DWAF will supplement these data by sanitary information on the water resources and some details on pathogens.

WHO WILL BENEFIT?

DWAF will design the microbiological monitoring programme primarily to meet the information requirements of water resource managers, but the information will be of benefit to others.

Potential users of the information provided by the microbiological monitoring programme include:

• national, provincial and local authorities with responsibility for the management of the aquatic environment
• national, provincial, local authorities and organisations concerned with human health
• effluent dischargers required to comply with quality specifications aimed at protecting water resources for sustainable safe use for human consumption and other purposes
• interested and affected parties including communities, non-government organisations, academic and research establishments, and the holiday, tourist and property development industries.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROGRAMME

Because of the size and complexity of the design and testing of the microbiological programme, we are using a phased approach:

Phase 1: Conceptual design

Phase 2: Testing of design

Phase 3: Implementation

A NATIONAL UNDERTAKING

Design and implementation of the programme will depend heavily upon the countrywide collaboration of microbiologists and organisations with expertise and available data relating to the quality of water resources. In addition, the early involvement of all those who will eventually participate in the programme, will ensure a practical, cost-effective and user friendly programme.