DRINKING WATER - TREATMENT

Millions of people are exposed to unsafe levels of chemical contaminants in their drinking-water. This may be linked to a lack of proper management of urban and industrial wastewater or agricultural run-off water – potentially giving rise to long term exposure to pollutants, which can have a range of serious health implications. Or it may be linked to naturally-occurring arsenic and fluoride, which cause cancer and tooth/skeletal damage, respectively.

The Millennium Development Goal target 7c calls for reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation by 2015. Reaching this target implies, inter alia,tackling both the quantity (access, scarcity) and quality (safety) dimensions of drinking-water provision.

WATER - TREATMENT

Water treatment should remove existing water contaminants or so reduce their concentrate that their water becomes fit for the desired end-use is safety return used water to environment.

The process involved to treating water for drinking purpose may be solids separation using physical process such settling and filtration , and chemical process such as disinfection and coagulation.

Water purification is the removal of contamination from untreated water to produce drinking water that is pure enough for the most critical of the intended uses, usually for human consumption. Substance that are removed during the process of drinking water treatment includes suspended solids, bacteria, algae, viruses, fungi, minerals such iron, manganese, and sulfter, and other chemical pollutants such as fertilizers.

Measures taken to ensure water quality not only relate to the treatment of the water, but to its conveyance and distribution after treatment as well. It is therefore common practice to have residual disinfectants in the treated water in order to kill any bacteriological contamination during the distribution.

World Health Organization guidelines are generally followed throughout the world for the drinking water quality requirements, In additional to the WHO guidelines, each country or territory or water supply body can have their own guidelines in order for consumers to have access to safe drinking water.

Many developing countries use the Guidelines directly or indirectly in setting national standards. The Guidelines are often used where guidelines or standards are unavailable and are also referred to in the food standards developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (for instance, for mineral water and bottled water).