SAFEWATER Devices Translation and Implementation (SAFEWATER Translate)

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Around 2 billion people in the World commonly drink water that is not safe due to faecal contamination putting them at high risk of waterborne disease such as cholera, typhoid and other diarrhoeal diseases. Diarrhoea is one of the main causes of under-5 mortality, with 58% of diarrhoea-related diseases attributed to inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene. There is a real and urgent need to develop and deploy technologies that can easily and rapidly determine if water sources are safe to drink. In the GCRF SAFEWATER project, Ulster University has been working with partners in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil to develop IoT devices that can be used to determine the microbiological quality of water in rural communities, without access to microbiology labs or skilled staff. Initial results with alpha prototypes are very promising and we need to accelerate the development of this technology so it can be implemented at scale for the determination of water quality in other developing regions. The SAFEWATER Translate project will develop Beta phase prototypes and test these in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico with our current SAFEWATER partners. We will also translate the technology for testing in Ethiopia, Malawi and Nepal. At the end of 18 months we aim to have a robust solution to monitoring of water quality in remote regions of the globe without access to labs or skilled staff. We will also explore the pathways to implementation considering equitable partnerships and the most effective route to making a real impact with high tech solutions to protect the most vulnerable people on Earth.