ABSTRACT
Water is essential for sustaining human, animal and plant life. Drinking water contains many trace contaminants, both cationic and anionic. The sources of contamination of the aqueous environment can arise directly from geological sources, factory effluent and waste treatment plants or indirectly from the soil by agricultural or industrial runoff. There are several European Union standards for drinking water that cover thousands of pollutants, e.g. inorganic and organic materials (75/440/EC 1975, 80/778/EC 1980, 98/83/EC 1998). A list of some typical maximum permitted levels of contaminants is given in Table 5.1.
