The objective of this report was to analyse and compare vulnerability and preparation in Swedish municipal drinking water production, in case the commonly used water sources were inoperative. Methods used were a questionnaire and a less extensive study of regulations for water protection areas. The questionnaire was answered by 41 Swedish municipalities. A handful of them were companies co-owned by a few municipalities. Only one out of four municipalities had source protection areas to all their water sources and for many sources the protection was not satisfactory. Two municipalities in the study had no water sources of their own. Instead they bought all their drinking water from a company. This was considered an element of risk. It was also considered risky to have only a few water sources of the same type (groundwater or surface water). In this case it is extra important that there are other ways to prepare and deliver water. Half of the municipalities in the study had a substitute water source but an evaluation found half of these water sources deficient in at least one perspective. There were mainly three reasons why some municipalities did not have a water source substitute. These reasons were financial limitations, difficulties finding a water source with enough capacity and that the preparation had been found adequate without a water source substitute. The last argument was the most common and has occasionally been found accurate. One third of all the municipalities were still inadequately prepared for possible emergencies affecting water production.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-60530 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Helmersson, Alexandra |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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