Comparative assessment of field methods for microbiological water quality testing in emergencies

The combination of Comparative Analysis Performance and Decision Rank Matrix results were used to assess; accuracy, experimental process, cost per 1000 samples, portability and durability of Delagua, Colilert (P/A), Colilert (MPN) and Petrifilm methods for examination of microbiology water quality during emergencies. The assessment further compared human body incubation techniques with conventional power supplied incubation Colilert MPN is ranked (1st ) followed by Petrifilm (2nd) and lastly the Delagua (3rd) method. The ranking indicates that during an emergency, Colilert MPN should be considered first next Petrifilm and last the Delagua method. The equal positive and negative at all levels of dilution of Colilert (P/A) results show that the Human body incubation technique performs well in comparison with the power supplied incubator. Based on simple statistics analysis on the results of detected E-coli, human body incubation techniques has standard error of 0.02, more accurate as compared with the powered incubator with standard error of 0.03.