7. Cyanotoxin building-block for your Water Safety Plan

With the steps of this decision support tool you have followed the conceptual logic for developing a Water Safety Plan (WSP) specifically for your setting, though only for one group of several potentially occurring hazards. Your tables and entries in your worksheet document the results of your risk assessment, your reasons for it, your judgement of the uncertainty of this assessment, your identification and validation of specific control measures and your scheme for verification that the system is working safely. This serves transparency of your decision criteria.

For completing your WSP, further hazards (e.g. Cryptosporidia and further faecal contaminants, industrial chemicals, pesticides, etc.) would be analysed and the risk they pose be assessed comprehensively in analogous manner, and control measures identified. Often they will address several hazards simultaneously. It is strongly recommended to perform such a more comprehensive assessment, as the outcome will set the health risk from toxic cyanobacteria into perspective against other health risks from hazards that may occur in your system, and this is valuable for making decisions on management priorities (see cyanotoxins in relation to risks from other hazards).

Your assessment of risks and control measures should be periodically reviewed and updated. Simplified, the process of developing a Water Safety Plan consists of the following elements:	Your actual Water Safety Plan Document should include outcome of steps 2 – 6 of this decision support tool as outlined by your entries in the worksheet provided on the starting page. A particularly important aspect is to make your assessment transparent, by including the criteria you used and your estimates of the uncertainty of your assessments. Documentation in the context of a WSP should further include monitoring records that demonstrate process control, and results of water quality verification.
	Thus, the completed worksheet, together with accompanying documents to which it refers, actually constitutes the cyanotoxin building block of your Water Safety Plan Document.
	Comprehensive documentation is extremely valuable for securing information and experience, including for training staff. It is further a good basis for communication with authorities responsible for independent surveillance (e.g. health authorities), which can use this as basis for assessment of the safety of your system. Thus good documentation serves as protection against accusations of inadequate management. This can be strengthened by an external audit of your Water Safety Plan. Last but not least, your documentation is a useful basis for public communication about the control measures implemented in your water supply and the stringency of their monitoring.

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