The impact of wastewater-irrigated urban agriculture on microbial quality of drinking water at household level in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Wastewater irrigation may reintroduce fecal pathogens to households and cause drinking water contamination. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of wastewater irrigation on the quality of drinking water among wastewater-irrigating urban farming households. Drinking water samples from 52 households of farming communities in 19 sampling sites were collected twice at PoS and PoC. The microbial quality of the water was assessed using E. coli counted by membrane filtration. Samples collected from exposed households at PoC were 100% positive for E. coli with mean E. coli at PoC increased 10× from the PoS and 3× higher compared to PoC in the unexposed households. The absence of hand washing water (ATE = 8.14), water storing (ATE = 7.75) and intermittent water supply (ATE = 6.25) were significant factors for the increased E. coli at PoC. Breaking the path of the pathogens from the farm to the house and from PoS to PoC needsintervention.

KEYWORDS:

• E. coli
• Ethiopia
• fecal contamination
• in-household contamination
• wastewater
• drinking water

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Water and Land Resource Center of Addis Ababa University for their timely support. We are very grateful to Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority for allowing us to use their microbiology laboratory. We wish to acknowledge the unreserved support of Agriculture officers and health extension workers in the study area districts of Addis Ababa. We are also grateful to urban farmers for providing the requested information. We also highly appreciate Wag-Tech Ethiopia for supplying microbial kits for the laboratory analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author and can be given on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was fully supported by the Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub, which is funded by the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Grant no.: ES/S008179/1.