Abstract
Groundwater drinking water supply surveillance data were accessed to summarize water quality delivered as public and private water supplies in southern Saskatchewan as part of an exposure assessment for epidemiologic analyses of associations between water quality and type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease. Arsenic in drinking water has been linked to a variety of chronic diseases and previous studies have identified multiple wells with arsenic above the drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L; therefore, arsenic concentrations were of specific interest. Principal components analysis was applied to obtain principal component (PC) scores to summarize mixtures of correlated parameters identified as health standards and those identified as aesthetic objectives in the Saskatchewan Drinking Water Quality Standards and Objective. Ordinary, universal, and empirical Bayesian kriging were used to interpolate arsenic concentrations and PC scores in southern Saskatchewan, and the results were compared. Empirical Bayesian kriging performed best across all analyses, based on having the greatest number of variables for which the root mean square error was lowest. While all of the kriging methods appeared to underestimate high values of arsenic and PC scores, empirical Bayesian kriging was chosen to summarize large scale geographic trends in groundwater-sourced drinking water quality and assess exposure to mixtures of trace metals and ions.
Highlights
Several studies have highlighted associations between exposure to arsenic from drinking water and a variety of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
A sample of 283 wells in Saskatchewan [19] found that approximately 45% of the wells exceeded the Saskatchewan drinking water objective for sulfate, 47% exceeded the objective for iron, 61% exceeded the objective for hardness, and 79% exceeded the objective for manganese
We investigated the use of principal components analysis (PCA) and kriging to predict groundwater water quality across southern Saskatchewan as part of the exposure assessment for epidemiological investigation of links between water quality and chronic disease
Summary
Several studies have highlighted associations between exposure to arsenic from drinking water and a variety of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Especially aesthetic issues that impact consumer acceptance of tap water, might have indirect impacts on the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease by motivating the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages as an alternative to drinking water [8]. Guidelines for acceptable levels of contaminants and regulations pertaining to water quality testing are established by each province, but typically follow recommendations set forth in the federal Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water. In the province of Saskatchewan (SK), the Drinking Water Quality Standards and
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