Chapter 15 - On-going challenges, hazard identification, health risk assessment, and regulatory guidelines and standards of the water resource management

Abstract

Today, sustainable water resource management has been highlighted to be a priority focus among the scientific community, driven by the urbanization, growing industrial activities, agricultural land uses, power generation and unpredictable climate change. On a global scale, these organic, inorganic, and biological hazards of water contaminants have been accounted for millions cases of disease outbreaks and poisoning incidences for the last 20 years. Available evidences have suggested that the establishment of an effective and reliable risk assessment and management framework for the organization, evaluation and analytical assessment of the scientific information on the types, characteristics and magnitudes of both chemical and microbial hazards, as a critical cornerstone for the enactment of water quality standards and guidelines. The practical application and interpretation of the real scenario may be differed according to the alteration of duration, levels of exposure, types of detected hazards and the associated environmental settings. Within this framework, this chapter is structured as an early attempt to outline on-going challenges of the drinking water quality, causes/sources and pathways of pollutants in the water environment. The specific features of hazard identification, exposure assessment, and a comprehensive overview of the risk assessment models, including the carcinogenic risk and non-carcinogen assessments, quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), water safety plans (WSPs) and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP), will be systematically elucidated. Moreover, a rationale comparison across a wide range of international drinking water guidelines and standards will be highlighted.