Recommendations

It is not the intention of this research, with its individual results and overall conclusions, to provide all the answers as a ‘one fits all’ solution to the current water pollution problems of the FRC. However, it presents the current status of water quality conditions of the FRC to provide scientific based evidence in relation to its land use distribution pattern that could assist with the management strategies and the improvement of operational monitoring for water resource management and protection of catchment areas in Samoa.

The study was set with the purpose to enhance water quality performances and pollution control within the catchment level, in order to offer a safe water supply and to support the ecological health of the river’s ecosystem. In saying this, there are several areas that need to be considered that require further review, assessment and investigation, and this would be the ideal basis for future improvements to current water quality monitoring, and research opportunities. In order to address these areas, this research recommends the following:

x Experiencing the multicollinearity issue in the delineation analysis in this study requires a different approach to selecting water quality sampling site. It is recommended for better results of catchment delineation, the selection of sampling sites shall consider for each tributary, and to ensure each site correspond to a particular land use type that could identify as potential source of pollution.

x Consider the inclusion of a wet season study, in which discharge of pollutants (e.g. concentrations of water quality parameters in relation to land use as discharge of pollutants during the rainy season) could be higher, compared to the dry season. This would give a fair representation of how land use could affect river water quality, in regards to pollution prevention and sound management within the catchment level. Comparison analysis between the two seasons would make it possible and ideal to generate more interesting information in this regard to help with future management and pollution control at the source level.

130 | P a g e x The government needs to take further steps in revising its current National Drinking Water

Standard, 2008, in particular its aesthetic section and to consider having ecosystem and environmental standards to include benchmarks for rivers, lakes and streams as most critical parameters to regulate recreational activity and river ecosystem health, are not included in the current SNDWS. This revision is crucial to safeguard public health and to allow consideration for good ecological health of freshwater resources and ecosystem in Samoa.

x The results of microbiological analysis in this study revealed great risk of Fuluasou River from microbial contamination especially the two untreated water supply system known as Chinese 1 and Chinese 2, administered by the Samoa Water Authority (SWA). Therefore, it is strongly recommended to include a special review of Drinking water quality in Samoa as part of the on-going ‘Annual Review for Water and Sanitation Sector’ despite having the Ministry of Health only reporting on its current Drinking water quality monitoring program for surveillance and compliances purposes. This would assist the Ministry of Health in evaluating the effectiveness of its policies and current ‘Drinking Water Quality Monitoring Program’, and any public health risk management plans to ensure effective regulatory framework are in place to improve water quality through surveillance and compliances purposes.

x The government needs to take into consideration strict measures to control water quality and hydrological field monitoring operations, in order to improve on their data collection and management, with a strong emphasis on scientific data analysis and updates. Resources allocated to field monitoring need to be more reliable to avoid inadequacy in the current water quality monitoring system. Strict control measures should be incorporated in any current water quality monitoring framework within responsible government ministries to ensure useable and reliable data are collected and analysed in a timely manner. This can provide more practical information and data that could inform and strengthen water resource management policy. Available of affirmative action policy statements with strong scientific evidence-based would help guide practical and sound management strategies and plans of action (PoAs), which would result in a firm, public

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commitment from all key stakeholders (especially from the government) to undertake positive actions in addressing current water pollution issues in Samoa.

x In future research development as the next stage of this study, it is recommended to conduct an epidemiological study component to assess a spatial distribution and correlation analysis between the water-borne diseases cases or illness reported, and feacal-indicator bacteria concentrations from those who resides within Fuluasou River Catchment or those whose households are serviced by the water supply system sourced from Fuluasou River.

x It is recommended for the Water Resources Division of MNRE to consider relocating their water flow logger and suggest their water flow monitoring to be located perhaps just after the eastern (after STN5) and middle river branch (after STN6) met before the EPC old dam. This would give a more holistic approach to the flow discharge of FRC rather than having it monitor at only one river tributary on the upper catchment (eg. at STN3).

x Given the flow discharge of Fuluasou River recorded a significant low flow towards the lower catchment, and the disruption of a nature flow regime of the river identify caused by the existing old EPC hydro dam in the middle of the mid-catchment, it is strongly recommended for the government to consider possible demolition. This would allow water to flow naturally in the system that could prevent pollution accumulation associated with low flow at the lower catchment. Also to ensure sufficient environmental flow for the survival of aquatic life downstream, and could probably help with river drying out at the lower reach of the catchment during the dry period.

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