Slow sand filtration water treatment plants
Practical Action
SLOW SAND FILTRATION WATER TREATMENT PLANTS
Design, Operation and Maintenance
César Marrón
1999, Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action)
PROLOGUE
The main objective of this handbook is to disseminate the water treatment processes
identified as the most appropriate for the rural Amazon environment. It is not the intention
to provide a comprehensive description of all the different solutions, but to complement them
based on the problems identified in our own experience with safe water treatment plants.
The experience gained by Practical Action in Alto Mayo was based on the adaptation of
existing technologies to the local conditions, designing a less costly and more manageable
slow sand filtration model and introducing slight changes in the ascending flow pre-filtration
units developed in the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and disinfection with a small-scale
drip chlorinator.
We should like to thank the previous Water and Sanitation teams of Practical Action and
Engineers Without Borders of the Basque country for their valuable contributions to this
manual.
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