Quality of Rural Drinking Water in a City in 2013

Objectives  To understand the quality of drinking water derived from rural centralized water supplies in City B, to look for the main pollution indicators in order to provide data for supporting rural centralized water supplies in the city.

Methods  Investigating the treatment process, the type of water sources, the operation of disinfection equipment in centralized water supplies in 268 monitoring points, and testing the quality of finished water from water factories and tap water in dry seasons and wet seasons.

Results  The difference of water quality between finished water and tap water was not significant (χ²=0.12, P=0.729), but the quality of water in dry season was significantly better than that in wet season (χ²=11.527, P < 0.01). The qualified rate of total coliform counts in YQ district, nitrate nitrogen in FT district, and total hardness in DX district was lower than other districts. The qualified rate of total coliform counts in wet season was lower than that in dry season in CY district, CP district and FS district. The qualified rate of nitrate nitrogen in HR district in wet season was lower than that in dry season. The qualified rate of total hardness in FT district in dry season was lower than that in wet season.

Conclusions  The main pollution indicators for the quality of rural drinking water in B City were total hardness, total coliform counts and nitrate nitrogen, and the variation of water quality was in a feature of regional aggregation and seasonal distribution.