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Revista de Salud Pública
Print version ISSN 0124-0064
Abstract
GARCIA-UBAQUE, Cesar A. et al. Limitations of the Water Quality Risk Index as an estimator of quality for human consumption. Rev. salud pública [online]. 2018, vol.20, n.2, pp.204-207. ISSN 0124-0064. https://doi.org/10.15446/rsap.v20n2.65952.
Objective
To analyze the results of the Water Quality Risk Index (IRCA) in the 116 municipalities of the department of Cundinamarca, between 2007 and 2013.
Materials and Methods
Information collected from the 116 municipalities of the department of Cundinamarca, selected and classified according to the percentage data retrieved by IRCA.
Results
A decrease of the annual IRCA average is observed, which reflects an improvement of the water quality delivered in the department. However, 26.7% of the municipalities do not report information from their rural areas, and 56.9% of the municipalities report IRCA figures over 5, which means that even though they are at low risk, they receive water unfit for human consumption.
Conclusions
A new weighting method for the parameters evaluated with the IRCA is proposed to make this index more representative of the risk to health. In addition, future studies should carry out a thorough statistical analysis on the size of the sample that allows the obtained results to be reliable for decision makers to improve the quality of drinking water.
Keywords : Water supply; water purification; waterborne diseases (source: MeSH, NLM).