Water Safety Plan
The Water Safety Plan (German drinking water safety concept ), based on the WHO template "Managing drinking water from catchment to consumer", is a concept for ensuring water quality from the catchment or water catchment area to the tap, which was published in 2003.
Ensuring a high quality of drinking water can be guaranteed on the one hand through preventive risk minimization (e.g. in the case of groundwater ) and on the other hand recurring quality controls (up to the taps ). Negative influencing factors and changes in the physical, chemical and hygienic properties and important technical parameters must be recognized early and avoided. The elements of the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) approach known from the food industry and successfully implemented there were introduced and resulted in the Water Safety Plans . The development of a water safety plan enables weak points in the supply system and the upstream resource system to be identified and eliminated. The WHO Water Safety Plan concept comprises steps that build on one another: 1. the hazard analysis , 2. the risk assessment and systematic process control.
The relevance of safety concepts in water supply was emphasized in the Bonn Charter for Safe Drinking Water (2004). This relevance is not limited to developing countries , but is also of great importance in industrialized nations. The developed assistance for the practical implementation of a Water Safety Plan , around 2009 a manual for large water supplies, 2012 a manual and 2014 a guide for the practical implementation in small towns. At the European level, the concept was taken up in 2013 in DIN-EN 15975-2; the technical association DVGW implemented it for Germany in its worksheet Requirements for the qualification and organization of drinking water suppliers (DVGW W 1001) as early as 2008.
Web links
- WHO WSPortal
- WSP in developing countries
- Ten years of the WHO Water Safety Plan (DVGW)
- Safe management of drinking water supplies