Centralized or Onsite Testing? Examining the Costs of Water Quality Monitoring in Rural Africa.

ABSTRACT: Rural water systems in Africa have room to improve water quality monitoring. However, the most cost-effective approach for microbial water testing remains uncertain. This study compared the cost per E. coli test (membrane filtration) of four approaches representing different levels of centralization: (i) one centralized laboratory serving all water systems, (ii) a mobile laboratory serving all systems, (iii) multiple semi-centralized laboratories serving clusters of systems, and (iv) decentralized analysis at each system. We employed Monte Carlo analyses to model the costs of these approaches in three real-world contexts in Ghana and Uganda and in hypothetical simulations capturing various conditions across rural Africa. Centralized testing was the lowest cost in two real-world sett

SUBMITTER: Trimmer JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11223485 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature