Household water treatment and safe storage in emergencies A field manual for Red Cross/Red Crescent personnel and volunteers

It is always better to use water from a clean source that’s stored in a safe way. However, this is not always possible, especially in an emergency. Something may have made the source unclean or unusable. Or a population may not have access to clean containers or practice good hygiene behaviour.

One approach to this problem is treating water at the household level. This is often a temporary measure undertaken until the water source can be improved. Household water treatment techniques can be carried out by any member of the family after a brief and basic technical training