Computer code for selecting appropriate point of use water filtration treatment technology

Abstract

Water is fundamental for human health and survival. Adequate water availability and quality are key components to alleviating poverty in developing nations. Unfortunately, the right to safe water is not recognized for a large portion of the world's poorest citizens as at least 1.1 billion people lack access to water and 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation (WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2000). This has been identified as "a silent humanitarian crisis that each day takes thousands of lives, robs the poor of their health, thwarts progress toward gender equality, and hamstrings economic development, particularly 111 Africa and Asia (United Nations Millennium Project, 2005)". Provision of safe water in developing nations is often times hindered by lack of funds required for installation of conventional treatment utilities coupled with inadequate technical capabilities required for their operation and maintenance. Thus new alternative strategies are urgently needed to address the world's current water crisis especially in third world countries. One such alternative is the promotion and implementation of Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) technologies. Program implementation organization survey and a HWTS technology selection tool to aid in the implementation of household water treatment and safe storage systems for local communities in developing nations has been developed. It focuses more on the social-economic aspects or the implementation process. The information it provides in comparing performance is ad hoc and subjective. This thesis has developed the Household Filtration Treatment (HFT) Evaluation System" solution through code developed in using the C# (sharp) programrning language.

C# combines the power and efficiency of C++, the simple and clean Object Oriented design of Java and the language simplification of Visual Basic. Coupled with its provision for garbage memory collection at runtime. type and memory access checking, new and exciting features such as reflections. attributes, marshalling, remoting, threads, streams, data access with ADO. Net no doubt made it the best programming language for this application. Thesis objective to develop a program which compares the performance of" different household water treatment and safe storage technologies was met. The program compares filters within the same technology and for different technologies. Such a feature is advantageous in the sense that not only can the best technology be selected but also general trends are easily established within specific household filtration technologies. For instance. comparisons between biosand filter and ceramic filter show that the later is best in faecal contamination reduction while the former gives the highest rates of filter flow though; both achieve permissible turbidity considered fit for human drinking It is hoped that water and sanitation actors including Non governmental Organizations, different Governmental departments, United Nation Children Education Fund and others will find HFT Evaluation System" important in propagating household water treatment and safe storage technologies towards achievement of environmental sustainability millennium development goal and in particular "halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation".