Water tests during travelling

1/4/2012 9:17:05 PM

As far as I know, there is no practical way to test the safety of water before drinking it.

For example, one common pathogen in water is the parasite Giardia. According to this link, the only known way to test for it is to filter several hundred gallons of water and examine the residue with a microscope (and know what the cysts or eggs look like). Even if the cysts are not observed, this is not conclusive evidence that the water is free of this parasite.

Testing for bacteria would probably require culturing a sample for several days. Viruses would be even harder.

So unless you carry a complete laboratory along with you, and are willing to spend a week testing each water source before drinking, testing will not help you. You will just have to purify your water every time, and hhh’s answer has good pointers on this.

7/3/2011 7:26:34 PM

mgb addresses just one tool: filtering pump. According to the source here, there are two other ways:

If sources of bulk, safe drinking
water are not available three better
choices are; a filtering pumps, an
ultraviolet light purifiers (search:
SteriPen) or an oxidant purifiers
(search MSR MIOX). These do have a
little bulk and require an initial
investment, but they can payoff
rapidly. (If you process ten liters of
water a day, at a value of one dollar
per liter, in ten days you have
recouped $100 dollars of your
investment.) Filtering pumps tend to
be the most versatile and labor
intensive, including requiring the
most maintenance. There are several
brands of differing quality available,
priced from $30 to $200. People have
had the most problems with models that
don’t have filters that can be
completely cleaned in the field. The
brand that seems to be the most
durable, problem-free is Katadin, but
it is also one of the slowest
filtering pumps and the most
expensive. The last two, hi-tech
methods, require clear water, which is
increasingly available, and use
batteries — which can be
rechargeable. The MIOX also need salt
and adds a little taste to the water,
which is mostly an issue if you start
with a high mineral water that already
has a taste. The UV pen is the most
fragile, but generally can be
sufficiently protected. The UV pen is
generally the fastest. For more
discussion on water treatment see
http://www.rei.com/learn/Camping/rei/learn/camp/clwatertreatf
and read and click through the pages.

But it is not actually totally true, there are even more ways: summary diagram about different purifying methods here (sorry pasting it tweaks the layout). Please, note that boiling one minute water kills protozoa, bacteria and viruses like the expensive purification methods such as purifier, filter, UV light, mixed oxidant, chlorine dioxide and iodine. More on the “effectiveness” diagram here. Some excellent tips/analysis/comparison with mgb’s Katadyn suggestion, boiling and other purifying methods here.

Comment by the user Martin Beckett to the original answer:

The steripens are pretty good but:
They kill bugs but don’t filter dirt,
and aren’t effective in cloudy water –
so are best if you have a supply of
clean but suspect water (like a tap).
If you are purifying water with
pens/iodine etc then you have to be
much more careful about which
containers you use for dirty/purified
and how long it has been treated for.
The equipped.org link has more info
about harder to kill things like
giardia.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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