Assessment of Water Purification Technologies in Developing Countries

Abstract

According to United Nations, there has been drinking water crisis in many developing countries. Aside from the direct impact of diminishing health and living condition, there are secondary impacts on poor education. To combat these issues, there are multiple technological innovations to solve this crisis. This research has identified six candidate technologies that are utilizing different methods for filtration and disinfection of harmful agents to create safe drinking water. In order to effectively choose and weight the criteria, we utilized both research and industry articles that we leveraged in the gap analysis. Multi-criteria Decision Analysis approach has been applied to evaluate the identified technologies. The findings of this research can assist communities in developing countries to select the appropriate water purification technologies to improve people's health conditions. The research also provides decision support for organizations and governments on which technology to choose for water purification.