Original: English WHAT IS SAFE WATER AND HOW MUCH SHOULD WE DISINFECT? QUALITY VERSUS QUANTITY

The Latin American cholera epidemic highlighted problems with the region’s water and sanitary infrastructure, and demonstrated that the risk of waterborne disease was not uniform. Although the provision of adequate water supplies is the first priority in situations of scarcity, safety of the water must be guaranteed. Water can become contaminated at the time of acquisition, transport, storage, and use. Disinfection helps guarantee water safety, but water quality monitoring is required to assure the effectiveness of treatment systems. New, low-cost, appropriate technology has expanded water treatment options for short and medium term responses to urgent water quality problems. Success of water projects depend on a number of other factors, such as the cost of technologies, community participation, recruitment of implementation partners, and the selection of potentially sustainable interventions. A project’s potential success can be enhanced by formative research to determine the appropriateness of a given project for a community. Project evaluation is important to measure a project’s impact and to make improvements. 1