Editing Pump (section)

===Pumps as public water supplies===
{{main article | Hand pump}}
[[File:Al-Jazari Automata 1205.jpg|thumb|Arabic depiction of a [[piston]] pump, by [[Al-Jazari]], c. 1206<ref name=Hill2>[[Donald Routledge Hill]], "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", ''[[Scientific American]]'', May 1991, pp. 64-9 ([[cf.]] [[Donald Hill]], [http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/HistoryofSciences.htm Mechanical Engineering] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225091836/http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/HistoryofSciences.htm |date=25 December 2007 }})</ref><ref>{{Cite web|author=Ahmad Y. al-Hassan|author-link=Ahmad Y. al-Hassan|title=The Origin of the Suction Pump: al-Jazari 1206 A.D. |url=http://www.history-science-technology.com/Notes/Notes%202.htm |access-date=16 July 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080226102543/http://www.history-science-technology.com/Notes/Notes%202.htm |archive-date=26 February 2008 }}</ref>]]
[[File:Taccola first piston.jpg|thumb|First European depiction of a [[piston]] pump, by [[Taccola]], c. 1450<ref>{{cite book| last = Hill | first = Donald Routledge | title = A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times | location = London | publisher =  Routledge | year = 1996 | page = 143 | isbn =  0-415-15291-7 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MqSXc5sGZJUC&q=Taccola+first+piston&pg=PA143}}</ref>]]
[[File:Pump-enabled Riverside Irrigation in Comilla, Bangladesh, 25 April 2014.jpg|thumb|240px|right|[[Irrigation]] is underway by pump-enabled extraction directly from [[Gumti River (Tripura)|the Gumti]], seen in the background, in [[Comilla District|Comilla]], [[Bangladesh]].]]

One sort of pump once common worldwide was a hand-powered water pump, or 'pitcher pump'. It was commonly installed over community [[water well]]s in the days before piped water supplies.

In parts of the British Isles, it was often called ''the parish pump''. Though such community pumps are no longer common, people still used the expression ''parish pump'' to describe a place or forum where matters of local interest are discussed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parish+pump|title=Online Dictionary – Parish Pump|access-date=2010-11-22}}</ref>

Because water from pitcher pumps is drawn directly from the soil, it is more prone to contamination.  If such water is not filtered and purified, consumption of it might lead to gastrointestinal or other water-borne diseases. A notorious case is the [[1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak]]. At the time it was not known how cholera was transmitted, but physician [[John Snow (physician)|John Snow]] suspected contaminated water and had the handle of the public pump he suspected removed; the outbreak then subsided.

Modern hand-operated community pumps are considered the most sustainable low-cost option for safe water supply in resource-poor settings, often in rural areas in developing countries. A hand pump opens access to deeper groundwater that is often not polluted and also improves the safety of a well by protecting the water source from contaminated buckets. Pumps such as the Afridev pump are designed to be cheap to build and install, and easy to maintain with simple parts. However, scarcity of spare parts for these type of pumps in some regions of Africa has diminished their utility for these areas.