The assessment of population exposure to chlorination by-products: a study on the influence of the water distribution system

Environmental Health

Research

Jean Baptiste Sérodes¹  Patrick Levallois²  Christelle Legay³  Manuel J Rodriguez³ 

[1] Département de Génie Civil, Université Laval, 2917B Pavillon Pouliot, QC., G1K 7P4, Québec City, Canada;Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, 945 Avenue Wolfe, QC., G1V 5B3, Québec City, Canada;École supérieure d'aménagement du territoire, Université Laval, Pavillon Antoine Savard, QC., G1K 7P4, Québec City, Canada;

关键词: Spatial Variability;    Distribution System;    Exposure Assessment;    Treated Water Quality;    Water Supply Infrastructure;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-9-59

 received in 2010-03-22, accepted in 2010-10-07,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe relationship between chlorination by-products (CBPs) in drinking water and human health outcomes has been investigated in many epidemiological studies. In these studies, population exposure assessment to CBPs in drinking water is generally based on available CBP data (e.g., from regulatory monitoring, sampling campaigns specific to study area). Since trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) are the most documented CBP classes in drinking water, they are generally used as indicators of CBP exposure.MethodsIn this paper, different approaches to spatially assign available THM and HAA concentrations in drinking water for population exposure assessment purposes are investigated. Six approaches integrating different considerations for spatial variability of CBP occurrence within different distribution systems are compared. For this purpose, a robust CBP database (i.e., high number of sampling locations selected according to system characteristics) corresponding to nine distribution systems was generated.Results and conclusionThe results demonstrate the high impact of the structure of the distribution system (e.g., presence of intermediary water infrastructures such as re-chlorination stations or reservoirs) and the spatial variability of CBPs in the assigned levels for exposure assessment. Recommendations for improving the exposure assessment to CBPs in epidemiological studies using available CBP data from water utilities are also presented.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Legay et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.