As clean water becomes increasingly scarce, it is important to determine how best to provide a community with drinking water. While various methods exist, each one has its benefits and limitations with respect to a community's unique requirements. The problem, therefore, is not the lack of solutions, but in matching them to the proper communities. Our goal is to create a model that will evaluate a community’s needs and subsequently suggest a solution to their problem based on their unique requirements.

2 Solution
2.1 Model Description
The model consists of two components: the first establishes the needs of the community while the second will suggest multiple solutions that best address the identified requirements. A user could consist of a national government, a village council, or even an individual who was familiar with the needs of the community. The following is a description of the model.

2.1.1 Model Input: Establishing the Problem
In order to establish the circumstances in which a community finds itself, the model will ask the user a series of questions. These questions can be grouped into five levels each one of which addresses a particular set of requirements. As the user moves down the levels, the questions become progressively more specific, allowing the model to narrow the community's needs. The five levels are shown and described in Figure 2.

2.1.2 Model Output: Providing Access to Drinking Water
This component of the model suggests multiple solutions which are best suited to the community’s needs. The solutions will be drawn from a database which is built into the model. Solutions will be ranked according to the following criteria:
• Anticipatory: the solution is not limited to solving the communities’ current problem, this will allow it to solve problems the community might face in the future
• Community size: the solution should be appropriate to the community's size
• Cost Efficiency: the solution should be cheap
• Ecologically Sound: the solution should not negatively impact the surrounding environment
• Effective: how well the solution solves the existing problem
• Energy Efficiency: the solution should be as self sufficient as possible
• Reliable: the solution has been shown to work in similar circumstances
• Simplicity: the solution requires little upkeep from the community and if broken should be easy to fix

2.1.3 Model Output: Role of the Case Study
Ideally, each possible combination of variables will be paired to a case study. This would allow the model to match communities to appropriate solutions by seeing what other communities in similar situations have done, assuming that the results were successful. Unsuccessful results are due certain factors being overlooked; having identified these factors, we could then be sure to include them in our model. This would ensure that communities facing similar problems would receive the most appropriate recommendations. As our model is applied to real situations, they in turn can be used as case studies to refine the model further.

2.2 Future Development of the Model
In the future, to develop our model, we will have to focus on three main areas: the first is the model's depth, the second is the model's validity, and the third is the model's simplicity. A block diagram of the development process is shown in Figure 3.

1. In order for the model to address the needs of any community, a complete set of criteria must be developed. Field experts will be needed to ensure that all relevant criteria are included. Once the criteria have been established, all possible combinations of included variables must be analysed and solutions for the different cases must be found. Furthermore, experts would be required to analyze the benefits and limitations of implementing a specific solution in a given case study. This would help us match solutions to scenarios properly.

2. The purpose of the model is to match a user with the most relevant solutions contained in the database. To do this the model must be assessed through qualitative validation. This would be done by asking field experts to develop new case scenarios and assess the suggested solutions. This will help to ensure that the model will be useful in the real world.

3. In order for the model to be adopted, it must be simple and intuitive to use. In order to ensure that the model is straightforward, communication experts will be consulted. Translators are also required to ensure that the model is accessible to as many communities as possible.

2.3 Model Qualities
2.3.1 Achievable
In order to be achievable, a project must satisfy two main criteria: it must address an existing problem and it must do so in a way which is convenient for the user. Our model satisfies both of these criteria as it addresses the growing issue of the lack of clean drinking water in a user friendly way.

2.3.2 Anticipatory
As humans will always need water to drink, new problems and solutions related to drinking water will continue to develop. Having established criteria by means of which solutions can be judged and problems can be classified, we will be able to incorporate these new problems and solutions into the model as they arise. The model itself is also anticipatory as it is designed to solve problems that do not currently exist by assuming the evolution of a community's problem to be similar to that of its case study match.

2.3.3 Ecologically Responsible
The model itself will not have an environmental impact but the ecological impact of the individual solutions is judged. Those that are more environmentally responsible will be recommended first.

2.3.4 Replicable
The basic principle behind the model, the idea that by asking a user a specific set of questions they can be supplied with a solution to their specific problem, is simple and should be easy for others to reproduce. The technique would be useful for purposes other than providing clean drinking water.

2.3.5 Verifiable
Once the model is finished, field experts can be asked to try the model and assess the recommended solutions. Additionally, once the model is being applied in real world situations, we can follow the results in order to go back and improve the model.

2.3 Financing
Due to the positive outcomes that will be achieved through implementation of the model, grant money will be obtained to fund its development. One such grant, NRC-IRAP is offered by the government of Canada; this grant is aimed to help enterprises develop technology to commercialize services ( ). As the cost of the materials is low; the commercialization of the service should not represent a significant obstacle to any one interested in it. Ideally the model will be produced and in the form of a book/leaflet/CD-Rom. Due to the model's dynamic capability (the possibility of adding new solutions and problems to the model's structure), a CD-Rom would probably be the best format to allow for the ease of new insertions.

3 Conclusion
The lack of clean drinking water is an urgent problem facing humanity. It has been shown that by improving peoples' access to clean water a variety of other problems could be solved. The described model addresses the issue by simply matching the community in need of water with the solution most fitted to its situation. As a result of the model's simplicity, its ability to address specific local needs, and to predict a community's future needs, we feel that it will be widely adopted. The model’s ability to predict and solve problems for communities will render it anticipatory; the ease with which it will be possible to include in it new problems and solutions as they arise will assure that the model’s anticipatory nature will be maintained in time. The benefit of our model is that it doesn’t require any new solutions to be developed, implying that it can be used to devise solutions to many problems as soon as it is released. Thus without much input we can create a lot of positive output, making our model a trim tab.