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A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) has published criteria for determining the quality of drinking water since 1958. Since 1984, these criteria were termed “guidelines” to emphasize that they are not national standards, but rather guidelines for nations to develop their own national stan...

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Autores principales: Mitchell, Erika J., Frisbie, Seth H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10619874/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37910472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287937
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author Mitchell, Erika J.
Frisbie, Seth H.
author_facet Mitchell, Erika J.
Frisbie, Seth H.
author_sort Mitchell, Erika J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) has published criteria for determining the quality of drinking water since 1958. Since 1984, these criteria were termed “guidelines” to emphasize that they are not national standards, but rather guidelines for nations to develop their own national standards, which may take into account local environmental, social, economic, and cultural conditions. When calculating guideline values (GVs), the WHO reviews the toxicological literature, calculates a health-based value (HBV), and determines whether the HBV should be adopted as a GV. The WHO also considers aesthetic aspects of drinking water quality, such as taste and the staining of plumbing fixtures, and additionally supplies aesthetic values (AVs) for certain drinking water contaminants. There is no central registry for national drinking water standards, so the degree of variation of national drinking water standards is not known. METHODS: We examined standards, guidelines, and background documents for all inorganic contaminants published by the WHO from 1958–2022. We also searched for national drinking water standards for all independent countries. RESULTS: We found the WHO currently has 16 GVs, six HBVs without GVs, and six AVs without HBVs or GVs for inorganic drinking water contaminants, excluding disinfection agents and their byproducts. More than half of the point of departure studies used to support these values were published in 2005 or earlier. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s population lives in jurisdictions with drinking water standards, and 14 countries directly link their national standards to the current WHO’s drinking water guidelines. Lack of transparency (standards available only through purchase) and typographical errors are common problems, especially for resource-limited countries. CONCLUSIONS: The WHO drinking water guidelines are crucially important for drinking water safety; they are used for guidance or as official standards throughout the world. It is crucial that they be based on the best available science.
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spelling pubmed-106198742023-11-02 A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines Mitchell, Erika J. Frisbie, Seth H. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) has published criteria for determining the quality of drinking water since 1958. Since 1984, these criteria were termed “guidelines” to emphasize that they are not national standards, but rather guidelines for nations to develop their own national standards, which may take into account local environmental, social, economic, and cultural conditions. When calculating guideline values (GVs), the WHO reviews the toxicological literature, calculates a health-based value (HBV), and determines whether the HBV should be adopted as a GV. The WHO also considers aesthetic aspects of drinking water quality, such as taste and the staining of plumbing fixtures, and additionally supplies aesthetic values (AVs) for certain drinking water contaminants. There is no central registry for national drinking water standards, so the degree of variation of national drinking water standards is not known. METHODS: We examined standards, guidelines, and background documents for all inorganic contaminants published by the WHO from 1958–2022. We also searched for national drinking water standards for all independent countries. RESULTS: We found the WHO currently has 16 GVs, six HBVs without GVs, and six AVs without HBVs or GVs for inorganic drinking water contaminants, excluding disinfection agents and their byproducts. More than half of the point of departure studies used to support these values were published in 2005 or earlier. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s population lives in jurisdictions with drinking water standards, and 14 countries directly link their national standards to the current WHO’s drinking water guidelines. Lack of transparency (standards available only through purchase) and typographical errors are common problems, especially for resource-limited countries. CONCLUSIONS: The WHO drinking water guidelines are crucially important for drinking water safety; they are used for guidance or as official standards throughout the world. It is crucial that they be based on the best available science. Public Library of Science 2023-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10619874/ /pubmed/37910472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287937 Text en © 2023 Mitchell, Frisbie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mitchell, Erika J.
Frisbie, Seth H.
A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title_full A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title_fullStr A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title_full_unstemmed A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title_short A comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the World Health Organization’s drinking-water guidelines
title_sort comprehensive survey and analysis of international drinking water regulations for inorganic chemicals with comparisons to the world health organization’s drinking-water guidelines
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10619874/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37910472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287937
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