Herrera-Badel, Melissa

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    Development of a decision support tool to ensure safe drinking water in non-PRASA communities in Puerto Rico
    (2009) Herrera-Badel, Melissa; Hwang, Sangchul; College of Engineering; Rivera Santos, Jorge; Pagán Trinidad, Ismael; Department of Civil Engineering; Benitez Rodriguez, Jaime
    One of the main goals of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. In 2007, 97% of the Puerto Rico’s population used improved drinking water systems from the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) and approximately 125,130 persons of the rural areas do not have access to improved drinking water systems. This situation has intensified the efforts for innovation or improved technologies for drinking water treatment, with effluents of better quality and particularly with technologies that conform to environmental, economic, and social conditions in rural communities. This study contributes to the production of sustainable drinking water to rural communities of Puerto Rico, ensuring drinking water with low sanitary risk and water that meets drinking water bacteriological standards. This was done through the selection of communities with drinking water problems, the evaluation of Experimental Drum Sand Filtration (EDSF) system as a sustainable option to solve the drinking water problem based on the available data and information, and the development of a strategy to find the best location for EDSF system using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The identification and ranking of the communities based on the level of drinking water supply problems was done using an evaluation matrix method. The first step was to identify variables related to the drinking water problem, which received a quantitative value according to the positive or negative incidence with the problem. La Jurada community at Yauco, Puerto Rico, obtained the highest score. This community has a water supply system without treatment where the water is taken from a small water source and then provided directly to the community and, according to the bacteriological records, the water quality does not comply with regulations. The EDSF system is a good technological alternative for rural communities of Puerto Rico in terms of the physicochemical and bacteriological parameters, meeting regulatory biochemical water quality standards. However, it is necessary to improve the chlorine dosage to achieve the optimum residual chlorine concentration. The MCDA was the tool used to find the best place where the Experimental Drum Sand Filtration (EDSF) system must be installed, provide it that works by gravity, to ensure the sustainability in terms of economy, society, and environment. This strategy was tested initially in Las Piedras community in San Germán and subsequently was adjusted and applied in La Jurada community in Yauco. The GIS tool was a good complementary tool to solve problems of location selection of small drinking water systems like EDSF system.