WHO-standard Drinking Water: Supplying Clean Water in a Complex World
The World Health Organisation (WHO) sets strict guidelines for what it means for water to be clean and safe to drink, but billions of people around the world struggle to access WHO-standard water.
Imagine not being able to access clean, safe water.
Every time you have a drink, you risk getting sick. Every time you wash your hands, it’s with dirty water. Every time you bathe, you still feel and smell unclean after. For many, this is a daily reality even though access to clean, safe water is a basic human right and a necessity for building healthy, thriving communities. Clean water is essential for cooking, hygiene and sanitation. It’s vital for dignity, self-respect and resilience.
But, as climate change threatens water scarcity and increases water-related hazards, and rising conflict threatens infrastructure and access to clean water, finding sustainable ways to provide WHO-standard drinking water is more urgent than ever.
Here, we look at what clean water is, and how it can be provided through innovative solutions – even in complex and vulnerable areas.
What is WHO-standard drinking water?
The WHO provides international guidelines for regulating and standardising what it means to call drinking water clean. That includes setting out safe ranges for the following factors:
Microbial quality: Water may not contain harmful bacteria, viruses, or parasites, as these can cause high-impact infections, like cholera and diarrhoea.
Chemical safety: Stringent limits on hazardous chemicals, like arsenic, lead, fluoride, and nitrates, protect communities from long-term health risks.
Low radiation levels: To prevent long-term exposure to radiation, water must show safe levels of radioactive elements like radon or uranium.
Physical quality: Water should taste clean, be consistently clear and odour-free.
Water from natural sources requires treatment and testing to produce WHO-standard drinking water.
To achieve this standard, water from rivers, reservoirs, underground sources or other collection sites must undergo a rigorous treatment process to eliminate microbes, chemicals, and other contaminants. But this standard of testing and processing is difficult to maintain when water systems are particularly vulnerable to disruptions caused by conflict, natural disasters and climate change.
The challenges of delivering WHO-standard drinking water
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 was created to ensure access to sustainably managed WHO-standard clean water and sanitation for all. However, it remains out of reach for many today.
According to United Nations Water, over 2.4 billion people live in water-stressed countries, with access further complicated by conflict or geographical isolation. There are many complex reasons why communities are left without reliable access to WHO-standard water, which include:
Political instability: Conflict and instability may disrupt the supply of water to communities, due to damaged infrastructure and delayed repair efforts. In some conflicts, water is deliberately withheld and used as a weapon to gain political control.
Damaged infrastructure: Water treatment facilities, pipelines and wells are often damaged or destroyed in conflict, by natural disasters, or by lack of maintenance. The repair of these systems is both extremely costly and time-consuming. Taking months to years to resolve, this leaves communities reliant on inadequately treated or untreated water.
Displacement: Water scarcity is a primary cause of displacement around the world, and causes a further ripple effect of stressing water resources in areas of refuge, where camps often struggle to provide the WHO’s daily 20-litre-per-person standard.
Climate change: Extreme weather events such as droughts and floods place further strain on water-stressed areas, exacerbating water scarcity and threatening existing infrastructure.
In these conditions, people are forced to rely on unsafe water that falls far below the WHO-standard.
For example, the ongoing conflict in Yemen has left approximately 16 million people without access to safe water, resulting in cholera outbreaks. In Syria, 50% of water treatment plants are damaged or destroyed, with displacement placing additional pressure on limited water resources. Decades of conflict and underdevelopment in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have also left millions without access to safe water.
Water sources in conflict-affected areas like South Sudan are vulnerable to contamination, either through a lack of infrastructure maintenance or the deliberate use of water as a weapon.
Being able to access a clean and reliable water supply reduces the likelihood of disease outbreaks, freeing up resources for other recovery efforts. Access can also help restore dignity and stability and strengthen sanitation, all of which contribute to community resilience.
At Chelsea Water we believe in developing and providing innovative and easy-to-implement solutions that can help countries and international bodies address these kinds of challenges.
Solutions for complex environments
Chelsea Water specialises in providing WHO-standard water and purification solutions that can be easily and rapidly deployed, even in complex, harsh or conflict-affected areas.
All of Chelsea Water’s solutions employ cutting-edge technology to filter out harmful chemicals, odours, organic matter, microorganisms, heavy metals, bacteria, viruses and residual pesticides.
Water being tested at a Chelsea Village Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, where Chelsea Water ensures water meets WHO-standards through a custom containerised purification plant.
Our rapidly deployable and mobile solutions include:
Rapidly deployable and mobile:
Ideal for conflict or emergency situations and disaster relief, Chelsea Water’s mobile units are plug-and-play solutions that work as soon as they’re connected to a power source, which can be mains or solar panels. The Chelsea Mini is a suitcase-sized unit that can produce up to 1,000 litres of WHO-standard water a day, while the Trailered Purification Plant is mobile unit that can be towed by a 4x4, and produces 72,000 litres of WHO-standard water per day.
Custom Containerised:
Where longer-term solutions are needed, Chelsea Water provides customised containers that can produce anything from 10,000 to 20 million litres of WHO-standard water per day. These systems are designed to treat the specific raw-water quality of the area, to ensure efficient and effective purification, and the modular solution comes with training to ensure self-sufficient water-management once units are installed. This solution is perfect for serving industrial or larger-scale sites, such as municipalities, agriculture and schools.
Community Drinking Water:
Chelsea Water’s fixed-in-place solution, the Chelsea HydroSafe, provides up to 200,000 litres of WHO-standard water per day to remote or rural areas, for a consistent, reliable supply of clean water. This solution is easy to transport and install, allowing communities to focus on building and developing other essential resources.
Bottled Water Solutions:
Partnering with local enterprises, Chelsea Water bottles its own WHO-standard drinking water for distribution in remote and complex regions.
For more information on how we’ve already made a difference in complex areas, read our case study on DRC’s Lake Edward region.
Coping with an increasingly thirsty world
Innovative and easy-to-deploy solutions are more necessary than ever. The world’s supply of clean, safe water is in decline due to climate change, the destruction of our natural habitat and the release of untreated municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastewater into our rivers and lakes. These increased pressures are undermining water security and contributing to conflict, migration, and food insecurity in many parts of the developing world.
As conditions deteriorate, communities, governments and individuals will need to form strategic partnerships that can help ease hardships, address water challenges and ensure the fundamental right to clean drinking water is protected.
Contact us today to learn more about our innovative solutions and how we can help you.
