ABSTRACT
The one most essential characteristic of water is that it is dynamic: Water constantly evaporates from seas, lakes, and soil and transpires from foliage. It is transported through the atmosphere and falls to Earth, where it runs across the land and filters down to flow along rock strata into aquifers. Because public health aspects have reached such a high level of importance and complexity that local licensed health officials usually must be designated as those with the authority and jurisdiction in the community to review, inspect, sample, monitor, and evaluate the water supplied to a community on a continuing basis. This professional scrutiny is driven by updated drinking water standards, of course. The application of basic sanitary principles and technology has virtually eliminated serious outbreaks of waterborne diseases in developed countries. The most prevalent waterborne diseases include typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, infectious hepatitis, and gastroenteritis.
