Retracted: Assessment of effectiveness of water safety plans (WSP) on water quality in rural communities of Anambra State, south-eastern Nigeria

World Health Organization recommends the use of water safety plans as a systematic approach to ensure safe drinking water supply through a comprehensive risk assessment and management. This research assesses the implementation of WSPs in Anambra State, Nigeria, based on understanding the outcomes of the community’s WSP implementation and provides recommendations to improve the WSP process. To meet these objectives, a mixed-methods protocol was used, including household surveys on water management practices, water quality testing to determine water safety of households’ transport, stored and source waters and qualitative data collection. In an evaluation on the implementation of WSPs in two councils’ areas, relative to non-WSP implementing communities, the following activities were conducted: 120 household surveys; water sample testing at water sources; focus group discussions with key informants, water facility staff. Results indicate: water sources in both councils are producing relatively clean water; water management practices at the source were relatively safe with minor risky practices in a few communities; households involved in risky practices that led to contamination from transported through to stored water and water facility caretakers were aware of their responsibilities. Recontamination of the source water during transportation and storage remained the main difficulty in ensuring consumption of safe water.


INTRODUCTION
Water is one of the most important natural resources for the survival of man and its unavailability or deterioration in quality poses a serious environmental and health challenge to most communities in the world. The need to provide water source is defined as an improved source located on premises, available when needed, and free from microbiological and priority chemical contamination (WHO a).
Provision of safely managed drinking water sources, involves a series of systematic approaches and these have been designed and recommended by the World Health Organization as water safety plans (WSPs) (WHO b).
The goal of a WSP is to manage water supply such that health-based targets are met (Davison et al. ). WSPs also attempt to achieve the safety of drinking-water supply by implementing a vulnerability and risk assessment as well as risk management along the water supply chain from source to consumer. These recommended approaches have been implemented in communities worldwide, but indications are that there are no standardized effectiveness assessments, but rather these are subjective with local considerations of implementation communities. Some of the countries with case studies where WSPs have been effectively implemented include Cambodia, Lebanon, Ghana, Liberia, Tajikistan,

Madagascar and Uganda (WHO & UNICEF ).
The absence of indicator organisms in drinking water does not provide sufficient guarantee for microbial safety (Smeets et al. ). This necessitates the need for qualitative and semi-quantitative risk assessment in application of WSPs Although the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention developed a method for evaluation across four key outcomes areas, evidence in support of the WSP methodology is lacking in published literature, particularly for rural, community-managed implementations (String & Lantagne ).
In Nigeria, WSPs are mandated in the Nigerian Standard for Drinking Water Quality, which was adopted in 2007. WSPs are required for all water service providers, including community-managed water committees.
The country-based WSP mandate is geared towards putting in place a preventive management framework for safe drinking water where risks to drinking water sources are identified, prioritized, and managed to prevent drinking water quality problems before they occur (FMWR & FMH ).
The objective by extension includes support to communities to have safe drinking water through good water supply practice and management. The WSP framework also included identifying and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders who play an important role in the provision of safe drinking-water at state, local council and community levels.
This research provides an assessment of operation and effectiveness of implementation of the WSPs, within the selected state, with the principal objective to understand the outcomes based on water management practices, water quality, and qualitative processes.

Study area
The selected study location was Anambra state in southeastern Nigeria (Figure 1), with a spread of 30 communities across the state within two local government councils (Anambra-East and Aguata) for sample collection and analyses. The choices of the selected locations were governed by the following criteria: (1) Similar water source or access  (1) Household surveys on water management practices; (2) Water quality testing to determine water safety of households' transport and stored water and source waters; and (3) Qualitative data collection, including interviews with water facility caretakers, interviews with key implementers from UNICEF and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), and focus group discussions with water, sanitation, and hygiene committees (WASHCOMs). Turbidity of water samples was also measured in the field laboratory with a calibrated turbidity meter within 12 hours of sample collection. Results were recorded in nephelometric turbidity units (NTU). Source water samples were tested at the source for the same parameters and collected and processed in the field lab in the same manner. All instrumental analyses were done using the Wagtech Palintest Tool Kits.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The numerical spread of the survey communities across the two local councils is as presented in Table 1. From the household surveys, mean age of respondents in Aguata was 46 years and 39 years in Anambra East, with a mean age of 42 years across both local councils ( Table 2). The survey also shows a majority (89%) of the total respondents to be literate across both communities. The mean number of people in the houses across the study areas was 6.
Observation shows eighty percent of households used jerry-cans as their transport container and this cans also serve as storage container in some households. The most frequently observed storage containers were plastic barrels and buckets, making up about 85% of storage containers.

Assessment of sanitary conditions of water transport
and storage containers had 10 and 83% of respondents claiming to clean the containers daily and frequently respectively. However a random visual assessment showed the containers to have poor hygiene conditions (Figure 2).
About 63% of respondents were of the view that water could make them sick; however, only a meagre 13% of the respondents reported treating the water in their homes and the major water treatment method was boiling and use of chlorine tablets (Table 2).

Water quality testing
Assessment of WSP and non-WSP implementing communities shows that twelve (12)   In the non-WSP implementing communities, no community was devoid of contamination in transported and   ) were of low risk, seven (approximately 47%) of medium risk, 1 of high risk and 3 (20%) of very high risk.
Geometric mean water quality parameters were calculated for all household water samples (n ¼ 120) (Table 3).
In source water, geometric mean E. coli concentration was 0.54 CFU/100 mL and turbidity was 0.92 NTU. In transport and storage containers, geometric mean E. coli concentrations were 24.3 CFU/100 mL and 55.9 CFU/100 mL and turbidity was 0.91 NTU and 0.91 NTU, respectively.
General observation indicates geometric mean of E. coli concentration and turbidity increased from source through storage, indicating water quality deterioration along the water chain ( Figure 3). E. coli concentrations were statistically significantly higher in transported samples from Aguata than those of Anambra East, while for storage, concentrations were higher for Anambra East than in Aguata.
Three (3) source samples in Aguata recorded E. coli contamination while seven (7) recorded same in Anambra East.
Statistical distribution trends of E. coli and turbidity in source, transport and storage samples for the two study areas are presented in Figure 4.   Assessment indicates ( Figure 5) eighty percent (80%) of the source samples in Aguata to be within conformity of the standard, 13% with low risk and 7% with medium risk. In Anambra East, the source samples had 60% in conformity and the remaining 40% to be of low risk. For the transport and stored water samples, the trends of variation were similar, but Anambra East had a higher percentage of samples within conformity of potable water as defined by the WHO standard. General assessment indicates that transport and storage container samples from Anambra East communities were prone to more recontamination, as compared to Aguata communities.
The noticeably increased contamination from source to storage can be adjudged to poor water management and hygiene practices, and this is a common trend in both WSP and non-WSP communities across both LGAs.
Unhealthy practices such as the use of communal funnels, usually prone to contamination, to collect water and unhygienic containers for transport and storage are major sources of contamination. The high percentage of claims to cleaning transport and storage containers from the household surveys appears at variance to the contamination indices.

CONCLUSIONS
Evaluation on implementation of water safety plans and its effectiveness in two local councils of Anambra were conducted. The following observations were made from the assessment: (1) Water sources in the WSP and non-WSP implementing communities in both local councils are producing clean water.
(2) Water management practices at some of the sources leads to contamination of the source water and this was more prevalent in the non-WSP implementing communities.
(3) Water management practices in households involved risky practices that can contribute to the recontamination of the water, from transportation through to storage, both in WSP and non-WSP communities.
Concentration of E. coli along the water chain showed 'conformity' according to the WHO standard of <1 CFU/ 100 mL in only one WSP community. Other communities exhibit low risk values at source but recontamination increases from transport to storage.

R E T R A C T E D
The WSP program has however improved water management from source to storage in WSP-implementing communities.
Contamination of the source water during transportation and storage remains a main problem in ensuring consumption of safe water.