Water quality/safety perceptions among people using tap water in metropolitan ankara

An electronic questionnaire was administered to 424 people living in the Ankara metropolitan area in order to investigate their perceptions regarding the safety and quality of water distributed by the Municipality of Ankara (ASKİ). The water treatment plant in the İvedik district is one of Turkey's most modern treatment facilities, and has a daily capacity of over 1.5 million m3. The municipality monitors the water daily and likewise publishes the results on their webpage. The Ministry of Health also monitors the water from 1265 monitoring points across Ankara. Analysis of the questionnaire responses revealed that only 8.8% of the participants preferred tap water and that 88.6% preferred bottled/home-filtered water for drinking. When asked why they did not drink tap water, 53.1% and 31% of the respondents indicated that they did not trust the water or disliked its taste, respectively. Moreover, 37.1% of the participants stated that even though they use tap water they do not trust it.