A community-based rainwater monitoring and treatment programme in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Abstract

South Africa is a water scarce country and its potable water supple suffers from problems such as pipe breaks and interruption of supply. This forces a large part of the population use rainwater for domestic consumption. In this climate, the current paper investigated the design of information tools about the source of rainwater contamination and the use of the modified hydrogen-sulphide test kit to detect the faecal contamination of rainwater. An information pamphlet was designed on the contamination sources of rainwater and the modified test kit was successfully used by the NGO volunteers to detect faecal contamination. The modified hydrogen-sulphide test kit and a combination of the E. coli enumerations correctly identified microbial water quality problems. These were then remedied using a collaboration between the authors and the community volunteers. The rate of correspondence between the m-TEC E. coli enumeration and the hydrogen-sulphide test kit was 71 %.