Question

The water quality standards and their national and International versions. Limitation and critical values?

Answer 1

Water quality standards (WQS) are provisions of state, territorial, authorized tribal or federal law approved by EPA that describe the desired condition of a water body and the means by which that condition will be protected or achieved. To protect human health and aquatic life in these waters, states, territories and authorized tribes establish WQS. WQS forms a legal basis for controlling pollutants entering the waters of the United States.

The Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality (GDWQ) is one of the longest - standing normative publications of the World Health Organization (WHO), with the first edition published in 1958. The GDWQ is an international reference point for the establishment of national or regional regulations and standards for water safety. The World Health Organization (WHO) Guideline for Drinking-water Quality (GDWQ) includes the following recommended limits on naturally occurring constituents that may have direct adverse health impact:

Apart from hazards of high pollutant levels, a sustainability criterion has to be included in the water quality guidelines to account for the long-term low-level application of certain pollutants that can accumulate in the environment. Using the example of cadmium, it is argued that the current guidelines need to be revised and should take local factors and future developments into account.