Assessment of drinking water quality within amalgamated territorial communities

Abstract

One of the main problems of rural residential areas is to provide the local population with quality drinking water, which is a major factor influencing their health. To solve this problem, it is necessary to implement effective measures not only at the state level but also at the regional and local levels. The main purpose of decentralization of power is to transfer the power and appropriate financial resources to the lowest levels of local self-government, which makes it possible for created amalgamated communities to use these resources to solve the priority issues. However, to determine the ecological state of rural settlements in the subsystem of drinking water quality, it is necessary to assess its quality in the territory where the community is situated. The investigation was carried out in 15 rural settlements of the Teterivka amalgamated community of the amalgamated Zhytomyr district. 36 water samples were selected from the sources of non-centralized water supply. Water quality classes were determined following DSTU (National Standards of Ukraine) 4808:2007 “Sources of Centralized Drinking Water Supply. Hygienic and Environmental Requirements for Water Quality and Selection Rules”. As a result, it has been established that nitrates make the largest contribution to the pollution of drinking water. In 47 % of the selected samples, the nitrate content on average exceeded the norm; and in 46.7 % of the investigated settlements, water belongs to quality class 4, defined as “mediocre”, “partially potable” of undesirable quality. A critical situation was recorded in the villages of Mykhailivka, Nova Rudnia and Staroshiika, where the nitrate content in all selected samples of the well water exceeded the norm. On average, 61 % of the selected water samples did not meet the standard and were below the standard. According to the pH indicator, the quality classes vary from “excellent”, very pure water grading to the class of “good”, pure water of the desired quality to “satisfactory”, slightly contaminated water of acceptable quality. The total iron content exceeded the standard in 5.6 % of the selected samples.