Improved Drinking Water

86% of Dominican's have accesses to improved drinking water sources according to UNICEF. I am designing a water treatment station for a town called Cien Fuegos in the Dominican Republic and the statistic of 86% of Dominican's already having access to clean drinking water took me by surprise. I wasn't sure what to think of it until I realized that instead of calling it clean drinking water, they called it "improved" drinking water. It got me thinking just what is "improved" drinking water? And exactly what does that statistic really mean in terms of having safe drinking water.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) defines "improved" drinking water sources as follows:

• Piped water into dwelling
• Piped water into yard/plot
• Public tap /standpipes 
• Tubewell /boreholes
• Protected dug wells 
• Protected springs 
• rainwater collection 
• Bottled water, if the secondary source used by the household for cooking and personal hygiene is improved

I knew that there was a water supply that piped water into many of the homes there, however, this water will make you very very sick. I didn't think that this could be counted as clean water. Again it was my mistake to confuse clean water with "improved" water. During my visit I plan on taking water samples from the cities we stay in to analyze back home just how bad the water is down there. I feel it will give everyone a better idea just how "improved" the drinking water is down there. 

What I am doing in the Dominican Republic is simple, I am designing a building and system that can be used to clean the local water supply and make it safe and drinkable to all the residents of the area. It will not be piped into dwellings or anything like that. So according to the definition above I am not improving the drinking water at all. Instead of defining the problem as improved drinking water it should be redefined as safe drinking water. That is my goal, to supply safe drinking water to the people of Cien Fuegos. 

I will be blogging throughout my journey and will keep updating this with where I am with the project and other random fun facts about where we are going.
Enjoy