Towards Sustainable Water Quality Management of R

Authors: Adel AlSalaymeh Issam A AlKhatib Hassan A Arafat

Publish Date: 2011/01/18

Volume: 25, Issue: 6, Pages: 1721-1736

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Abstract

Environmental management of rainwater harvesting in southern Palestine is required to reduce the continuously increasing demand for fresh water from limited water aquifers and to reduce the adverse health impact on the people drinking harvested rainwater This continuously increasing demand for fresh water requires the enhancement of environmental conditions surrounding the cistern owners’ awareness to tackle the mismanagement that contributed to rainwater contamination In this study 100 cisterns were sampled and tested for physiochemical and microbiological parameters Most of the tested physiochemical parameters were within the acceptable limits of WHO and Palestinian standards except turbidity calcium and magnesium where 24 47 and 32 of the samples were nonconforming respectively The pH values of the collected rainwater ranged from 732 to 897 with a mean value of 816 The nitrate analysis results range from 15 to 70 mg/L with a mean value of 42 mg/L High percentage of cisterns were found to be contaminated with total Coliforms TC and faecal Coliforms FC with percentages of 95 and 57 respectively rendering the cistern water unacceptable for drinking purposes 78 of samples had a severe degree of contamination for which water needs flocculation sedimentation then chlorination to become suitable for drinking On the other hand based on FC data none of the tested samples for FC was a “high risk” but 57 of them were categorized with “simple” to “moderate risk” and 43 were “no risk” cisterns A cistern owner’s survey was utilized to reveal the roots behind this contamination Different remediation measures such as cleaning cisterns and rainwater collection surfaces and discarding water from the first season storm were recommended to enhance and protect the cistern water quality

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