Abstract
Open defecation is practised by over 600 million people in India and there is a strong political drive to eliminate this through the provision of on-site sanitation in rural areas. However, there are concerns that the subsequent leaching of excreta from subsurface storage could be adversely impacting underlying groundwater resources upon which rural populations are almost completely dependent for domestic water supply. We investigated this link in four villages undergoing sanitary interventions in Bihar State, India. A total of 150 supplies were sampled for thermotolerant (faecal) coliforms (TTC) and tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF): an emerging real-time indicator of faecal contamination. Sanitary risk inspections were also performed at all sites, including whether a supply was located within 10 m of a toilet, the recommended minimum separation. Overall, 18% of water supplies contained TTCs, 91% of which were located within 10 m of a toilet, 58% had TLF above detection limit, and sanitary risk scores were high. Statistical analysis demonstrated TLF was an effective indicator of TTC presence-absence, with a possibility of TTCs only where TLF exceeded 0.4 μg/L dissolved tryptophan. Analysis also indicated proximity to a toilet was the only significant sanitary risk factor predicting TTC presence-absence and the most significant predictor of TLF. Faecal contamination was considered a result of individual water supply vulnerability rather than indicative of widespread leaching into the aquifer. Therefore, increasing faecal contamination of groundwater-derived potable supplies is inevitable across the country as uptake of on-site sanitation intensifies. Communities need to be aware of this link and implement suitable decentralised low-cost treatment of water prior to consumption and improve the construction and protection of new supplies.
Highlights
It is widely recognised that inadequate separation of human excreta from human contact represents a serious threat to public health (Bartram and Cairncross, 2010; Prüss-Ustün et al, 2014)
The eradication of open defecation via access to sanitation will dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people in India
We suggest that sanitary interventions in rural areas are contaminating groundwater-derived potable supplies with excreta upon which these communities are completely dependent upon
Summary
It is widely recognised that inadequate separation of human excreta from human contact represents a serious threat to public health (Bartram and Cairncross, 2010; Prüss-Ustün et al, 2014). It is estimated to be responsible for around 10% of the global disease burden, among children under five years old (Mara et al, 2010). Improving access to basic sanitation is one of the United Nation's Millennium Development. One billion people still practise open defecation around the world (WHO/UNICEF, 2014), including over 600 million in India (WHO, 2012). India has been attempting to tackle open defecation for decades under various guises, including the Total Sanitation Campaign that had ambitiously set out to eliminate the practice by 2012 (Patil et al, 2014). Last year the Prime Minister of India declared this a national priority and pledged to provide a toilet in every home by 2019 (Guiteras et al, 2015)
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