Significance of drinking water quality monitoring

Significance of drinking water quality monitoring

Water resources are the most important natural resources for human beings. Water is closely related to human life and is the basic condition for human survival and development. Without food, humans can survive for several weeks, but without water, humans will die from dehydration in a few days. More than two-thirds of our bodies are water, and healthy and sanitary domestic water is very important to human health. However, with the increasing pollution of water resources in recent years, water quality monitoring has become more and more important as a basic task in water pollution control.

Water quality monitoring plays a vital role in the overall water environmental protection, water pollution control and maintenance of the health of the water environment. It is a unified timed or irregular detection of chemicals, suspended solids, sediments and water ecosystems in water , Monitor and measure the types, concentrations and changing trends of pollutants in water bodies, and evaluate the status of water quality.

Water quality monitoring indicators can be divided into two categories: one is a comprehensive indicator reflecting water quality status, such as temperature, color, turbidity, pH, conductivity, suspended matter, dissolved oxygen, chemical oxygen demand and biological oxygen demand Etc .; the other is some toxic substances, such as phenol, cyanide, arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, mercury. For drinking water, if the water contains harmful substances, it will cause various diseases or infectious diseases. If there is too much fluoride in drinking water, the teeth will become streaked and cause "plaque disease". In severe cases, the teeth will be completely ulcerated. In recent years, domestic water safety problems caused by non-compliance of water quality tests have occurred from time to time, and have repeatedly endangered human health and life safety. Therefore, monitoring whether drinking water quality meets drinking water standards is of great significance to ensure people's drinking water safety.

In addition, water quality monitoring can also provide data and information for environmental management and environmental scientific research. It can accurately, timely and comprehensively reflect the current status and development trend of water quality, and provide a scientific basis for water environment management, pollution source control, and environmental planning.