Management of Household Water Tanks in Irbid Governorate of Jordan

Household water tanks are a common method of collecting water from municipal source supply and are the primary means of meeting daily needs. These tanks are frequently installed to endure a long time, and the water is stored permanently without any monitoring of water quality or even cleaning and maintenance. This study aims to investigate the management of household water tanks in Jordan. A questionnaire was distributed to 116 householders to assess their management of water tanks and the applied practice using the statistical package program (SPSS), as well as descriptive and statistical analyses. The result of the survey showed that 67.2% of households utilize plastic tanks, while 32.8% use galvanized (iron) tanks. Approximately 50% of people don’t clean their tanks and there is a strong correlation (-0.859) between storage cleaning and the presence of impurities inside the tank. About 93.1% of people use water for domestic purposes (cooking, showering, irrigation, etc..) and only <1% use it for drinking after membrane filtration. About 7.8% of the householders reported being affected by a specific disease/sickness because of water quality and 11.2% believe that water quality is poor from the source. It is recommended to enhance public awareness for better management of water storage and best practices for protecting water from various causes of contamination, as well as taking the necessary actions to guarantee high-quality drinking water.