UVic researchers play key role in Cambodian water-quality testing
March 2008
By Tara Sharpe
The Ring (Univ. of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)
It drips all over your face on hikes through local rain forests. It’s delivered to our homes and offices in heavy refillable bottles. And it flows on demand from thousands of taps here on Vancouver Island. We’ve got “water, water, everywhere” but there is often barely a drop worth drinking for people living in the rural communities of Siem Reap Province in Cambodia.
University of Victoria aquatic ecologist Dr. Asit Mazumder (biology) and his senior research associate William Duke, MD, want to help change that. They were invited by the world-wide humanitarian organization Rotary International to provide expertise in a community development project to improve household water quality and health in Siem Reap Province.
Mazumder, Duke and their colleagues in Victoria and Cambodia have set up a water-testing laboratory in the province’s capital city Siem Reap. Through interviews, water sampling and first-hand observation, they will evaluate water quality and health outcomes in 1,000 households in and around the capital city.
Although the capital has become a popular tourist destination, its economic benefits definitely do not extend to everyone. The province of Siem Reap—with a 53-per-cent poverty rate and 84 per cent of the population living in rural areas—is one of the poorest in Cambodia, and availability of safe water is a major concern. Less than one-third of the population has access to drinkable water and only 6 per cent have access to a latrine or toilet.
Add to this the daily realities of inadequate nutrition, poor hygiene and low literacy rates, and the outlook is stark, particularly for those who are the most vulnerable: the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cambodia is the highest in southeast Asia at 120 of 1,000 live births.
“For me, it’s all about the children,” Duke says. “It’s the reason that I’m here at UVic doing this research.” Before joining as a researcher in Mazumder’s lab, Duke worked with Doctors of the World in Chiapas, Mexico, where he became aware of the tragic toll paid by families who lack access to safe water.
Among the 1,000 households in Cambodia, the lab technicians are looking at the performance of bio-sand filters intended to transform red cloudy water taken from hand-dug wells and nearby river tributaries and remove deadly E. coli and other pathogens. The villagers are given assistance to set up and maintain the filters and then regularly receive visits from the lab team to ensure the equipment is operating optimally.
Equipment funds were provided by Rotary International, while UVic provided the expertise, supervision and laboratory materials through Mazumder’s NSERC Research Chair Program on the environmental management of drinking water.
Mazumder’s NSERC Research Chair Program—established in 1999 at UVic—has been conducting partnership and community-based research and knowledge transfer on water and aquatic resources management, safe drinking water and community health.
“Contaminated drinking water is the biggest killer globally, especially in the rural and poor communities of developing countries, and the Siem Reap project is one of the ways to transfer the expertise and knowledge we developed at UVic to help communities improve health and well-being,” says Mazumder.
“It is the only water-testing facility in the area right now, and the project partners want to make sure it can exist on its own while continuing to provide crucial water-purification support to the villages. We hope to use this lab as a foundation for a sustainable research, training and community support program on integrated water resources management for safe drinking water for rural communities.”
Project partners include the local “Capacity Building” Health Education Program, the Ministry of Rural Development of Cambodia, Angkor Hospital for Children and National Institute of Public Health in Cambodia and the Institute of Technology of Cambodia.
Initial funding for the project will be exhausted by July 2008 and transition funding is already being sought to support the lab’s continued operation and eventual expansion.
March 2008
By Tara Sharpe
The Ring (Univ. of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)
It drips all over your face on hikes through local rain forests. It’s delivered to our homes and offices in heavy refillable bottles. And it flows on demand from thousands of taps here on Vancouver Island. We’ve got “water, water, everywhere” but there is often barely a drop worth drinking for people living in the rural communities of Siem Reap Province in Cambodia.
University of Victoria aquatic ecologist Dr. Asit Mazumder (biology) and his senior research associate William Duke, MD, want to help change that. They were invited by the world-wide humanitarian organization Rotary International to provide expertise in a community development project to improve household water quality and health in Siem Reap Province.
Mazumder, Duke and their colleagues in Victoria and Cambodia have set up a water-testing laboratory in the province’s capital city Siem Reap. Through interviews, water sampling and first-hand observation, they will evaluate water quality and health outcomes in 1,000 households in and around the capital city.
Although the capital has become a popular tourist destination, its economic benefits definitely do not extend to everyone. The province of Siem Reap—with a 53-per-cent poverty rate and 84 per cent of the population living in rural areas—is one of the poorest in Cambodia, and availability of safe water is a major concern. Less than one-third of the population has access to drinkable water and only 6 per cent have access to a latrine or toilet.
Add to this the daily realities of inadequate nutrition, poor hygiene and low literacy rates, and the outlook is stark, particularly for those who are the most vulnerable: the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cambodia is the highest in southeast Asia at 120 of 1,000 live births.
“For me, it’s all about the children,” Duke says. “It’s the reason that I’m here at UVic doing this research.” Before joining as a researcher in Mazumder’s lab, Duke worked with Doctors of the World in Chiapas, Mexico, where he became aware of the tragic toll paid by families who lack access to safe water.
Among the 1,000 households in Cambodia, the lab technicians are looking at the performance of bio-sand filters intended to transform red cloudy water taken from hand-dug wells and nearby river tributaries and remove deadly E. coli and other pathogens. The villagers are given assistance to set up and maintain the filters and then regularly receive visits from the lab team to ensure the equipment is operating optimally.
Equipment funds were provided by Rotary International, while UVic provided the expertise, supervision and laboratory materials through Mazumder’s NSERC Research Chair Program on the environmental management of drinking water.
Mazumder’s NSERC Research Chair Program—established in 1999 at UVic—has been conducting partnership and community-based research and knowledge transfer on water and aquatic resources management, safe drinking water and community health.
“Contaminated drinking water is the biggest killer globally, especially in the rural and poor communities of developing countries, and the Siem Reap project is one of the ways to transfer the expertise and knowledge we developed at UVic to help communities improve health and well-being,” says Mazumder.
“It is the only water-testing facility in the area right now, and the project partners want to make sure it can exist on its own while continuing to provide crucial water-purification support to the villages. We hope to use this lab as a foundation for a sustainable research, training and community support program on integrated water resources management for safe drinking water for rural communities.”
Project partners include the local “Capacity Building” Health Education Program, the Ministry of Rural Development of Cambodia, Angkor Hospital for Children and National Institute of Public Health in Cambodia and the Institute of Technology of Cambodia.
Initial funding for the project will be exhausted by July 2008 and transition funding is already being sought to support the lab’s continued operation and eventual expansion.
3 comments:
in cambodia, clean drinking water can help prevent many common ailments, especially in small children and the elderly.
i think gov't in cambodia should push for safe, clean drinking water for all cambodia. although cambodia has a lot of water, naturally, but it is lack in safe, clean, drinking water for people. i hope this could change for the better in the future as cambodia progresses in development.
Well, our water today is a lot safer than 10 years, and it has not stop getting better yet.
Furthermore, I want to thank everyone and organizations who had work hard to help us with clean water.
God blesses all!
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