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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 30884

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ivone Vaz-Moreira

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Guest Editor

Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry (CBQF), Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, 4200-374 Porto, Portugal
Interests: drinking water; antimicrobial resistance; bacterial diversity; metagenomics; wastewater; taxonomy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Marcela França Dias

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Guest Editor

Department of Environmental and Sanitary Engineering (DESA), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 31270-901, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Interests: drinking and wastewater; antimicrobial resistance; metagenomics; microbial ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The impact of human activities on aquatic ecosystems and the increasing demand for quality drinking water have brought the need to comprehensively investigate this invaluable resource´s characteristics and sources of contamination. It is important to highlight that the access to drinking water is considered a human right and is defined by the United Nations as one of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Drinking water for human consumption may have different sources—mineral, surface, or groundwater—and the last two are frequently subjected to treatment before distribution. Treatment may impose considerable modifications to the microbiological and physicochemical characteristics of drinking water, as well as the storage of non-treated mineral water. However, some contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting compounds, might persist even after treatment.

In this way, this Special Issue is dedicated to exploring drinking water characteristics and their impact on human health and the gut microbiome. Since each country may have specific legislation and guidelines concerning drinking water quality, treatment, and distribution, contributions from different regions/countries are encouraged. New methodologies that might significantly contribute to drinking water characterization may also be considered in this Special Issue.

Dr. Ivone Vaz-Moreira
Dr. Marcela França Dias
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Drinking water
Water treatment
Bacterial diversity
Physicochemical parameters
Microbiome
Human health
Antibiotic resistance
Emergent contaminants

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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9 pages, 1736 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quality Control of Drinking Water in the City of Ilave, Region of Puno, Peru

by Pompeyo Ferro, Luis Jhordan Rossel-Bernedo, Ana Lucia Ferró-Gonzáles and Ivone Vaz-Moreira

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(17), 10779; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191710779 - 30 Aug 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2544

Abstract

The region of Puno, in Peru, is described as a region with some health conditions that may be associated with the water quality, such as a high index of anemia or cases of acute diarrhea in children. This study aimed at monitoring the drinking water quality of the city of Ilave, in Peru, and determining possible correlations between physical-chemical and microbiological parameters, and the water distribution conditions, such as the period of water availability. Physical-chemical parameters (turbidity, residual chlorine, temperature, conductivity, and pH), microbiological parameters (presence of coliforms), and heavy metals (Zn, Mn, Ni, Fe, and Cu) were determined. All the parameters quantified were within the maximum permissible limits according to Peruvian regulations, except for residual chlorine, which was, for all the treated water samples, below the recommended value of 0.5 mg/L. Coliforms that should be absent from drinking water were detected in all the household samples. These results demonstrate the need for the inclusion of additional steps of re-chlorination along the distribution system to guarantee the maintenance of residual levels of chlorine that assure the microbiological quality of water. The quality of the drinking water was not observed to correlate with the period of water availability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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18 pages, 4204 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Geographical Distribution and Pattern of Pesticides in Danish Drinking Water 2002–2018: Reducing Data Complexity

by Carina Skaarup, Kirstine Wodschow, Denitza D. Voutchkova, Jörg Schullehner, Ole Raaschou-Nielsen, Helle Raun Andersen, Birgitte Hansen and Annette Kjær Ersbøll

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(2), 823; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19020823 - 12 Jan 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2639

Abstract

Pesticides are a large and heterogenous group of chemicals with a complex geographic distribution in the environment. The purpose of this study was to explore the geographic distribution of pesticides in Danish drinking water and identify potential patterns in the grouping of pesticides. Our data included 899,169 analyses of 167 pesticides and metabolites, of which 55 were identified above the detection limit. Pesticide patterns were defined by (1) pesticide groups based on chemical structure and pesticide–metabolite relations and (2) an exploratory factor analysis identifying underlying patterns of related pesticides within waterworks. The geographic distribution was evaluated by mapping the pesticide categories for groups and factor components, namely those detected, quantified, above quality standards, and not analysed. We identified five and seven factor components for the periods 2002–2011 and 2012–2018, respectively. In total, 16 pesticide groups were identified, of which six were representative in space and time with regards to the number of waterworks and analyses, namely benzothiazinone, benzonitriles, organophosphates, phenoxy herbicides, triazines, and triazinones. Pesticide mapping identified areas where multiple pesticides were detected, indicating areas with a higher pesticide burden. The results contribute to a better understanding of the pesticide pattern in Danish drinking water and may contribute to exposure assessments for future epidemiological studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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27 pages, 1492 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Occurrence of Pharmaceuticals and Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in Brazilian Water and the Risks They May Represent to Human Health

by Sérgio Francisco de Aquino, Emanuel Manfred Freire Brandt, Sue Ellen Costa Bottrel, Fernanda Bento Rosa Gomes and Silvana de Queiroz Silva

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(22), 11765; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211765 - 9 Nov 2021

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3443

Abstract

The risks of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting compounds (P&EDC) to the environment and human health are a current topic of interest. Hundreds of P&EDC may reach the environment, hence, there is a need to rank the level of concern of human exposure to these compounds. Thus, this work aimed at setting a priority list of P&EDC in Brazil, by studying their occurrence in raw and drinking water, calculating health guideline values (GV), and estimating the risks of population exposure to water intake. Data on the Brazilian pharmaceutical market as well as published data of the monitoring of Brazilian natural and drinking water have been collected by means of an exhaustive literature review. Furthermore, many foreign data were also collected to enable a comparison of the values found in Brazilian studies. A list of 55 P&EDC that have the potential to be found in Brazilian water is proposed, and for 41 of these a risk assessment was performed by estimating their margin of exposure (ME), by considering their occurrence in drinking water, and guideline values estimated from reported acceptable daily intake (ADI) data. For seven compounds the risk was deemed high (three estrogens and four anti-inflammatories), whereas for another seven compounds, it was regarded as an ‘alert’ situation. Although such risk analysis is conservative, since it has been calculated based on the highest reported P&EDC concentration in drinking water, it highlights the need to enhance their monitoring in Brazil to strengthen the database and support decision makers. An analysis of the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance agents (antibiotics, resistant bacteria, and resistance genes) in surface waters was also carried out and confirmed that such agents are present in water sources throughout Brazil, which deserves the attention of policy makers and health agents to prevent dissemination of antimicrobial resistance through water use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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17 pages, 487 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How to Address Consumers’ Concerns and Information Needs about Emerging Chemical and Microbial Contaminants in Drinking Water; The Case of GenX in The Netherlands

by Liesbeth Claassen, Julia Hartmann and Susanne Wuijts

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(20), 10615; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010615 - 11 Oct 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2975

Abstract

The perceived safety of tap water is an important condition for consumers to drink it. Therefore, addressing consumers’ concerns should be included in the roadmap towards the UN SDG 6 on safe drinking water for all. This paper studies consumers’ information needs regarding emerging contaminants in drinking water using a mental model approach for the development of targeted risk communication. As most consumers expect safe drinking water, free of contamination, communication on emerging contaminants may increase concerns. Here, we showed that communication strategies better tailored to consumers’ information needs result in smaller increases in risk perception compared with existing strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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14 pages, 2125 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predicting Arsenic (As) Exposure on Human Health for Better Management of Drinking Water Sources

by Minhaz Farid Ahmed, Chen Kim Lim, Mazlin Bin Mokhtar and Rd. Puteri Khairani Khirotdin

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(15), 7997; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157997 - 28 Jul 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2272

Abstract

Chemical pollution in the transboundary Langat River in Malaysia is common both from point and non-point sources. Therefore, the water treatment plants (WTPS) at the Langat River Basin have experienced frequent shutdown incidents. However, the Langat River is one of the main sources of drinking water to almost one-third of the population in Selangor state. Meanwhile, several studies have reported a high concentration of Arsenic (As) in the Langat River that is toxic if ingested via drinking water. However, this is a pioneer study that predicts the As concentration in the Langat River based on time-series data from 2005–2014 to estimate the health risk associated with As ingestion via drinking water at the Langat River Basin. Several time-series prediction models were tested and Gradient Boosted Tree (GBT) gained the best result. This GBT model also fits better to predict the As concentration until December 2024. The mean concentration of As in the Langat River for both 2014 and 2024, as well as the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risks of As ingestion via drinking water, were within the drinking water quality standards proposed by the World Health Organization and Ministry of Health Malaysia. However, the ingestion of trace amounts of As over a long period might be detrimental to human health because of its non-biodegradable characteristics. Therefore, it is important to manage the drinking water sources to minimise As exposure risks to human health. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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8 pages, 762 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Preliminary Study of Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water in Public Parks—An Assessment of Equity and Exposure Risks in Two Texas Communities

by Leanne Fawkes and Garett Sansom

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(12), 6443; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126443 - 14 Jun 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4193

Abstract

Safe drinking water is celebrated as a public health achievement and is a top priority for the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet today, lead (Pb) contaminated drinking water has the potential to be a public health crisis in the United States. Despite efforts to provide safe drinking water, update water infrastructure, and ensure strict drinking water regulations, there are incidents of unsafe lead levels and reports of associated adverse health effects. While there has been increased attention paid to the quality of drinking water within individuals’ homes, little research has examined the presence and concentration of lead in water from drinking fountain sources located in public parks. In this study, we sampled drinking water from every accessible public park in the Bryan/College Station (BCS), TX metropolitan area (N = 56). With a lower detection level of 2.0 μg/L, we discovered a mean lead concentration of 1.3 μg/L across all sites and a maximum of 8.0 μg/L. Furthermore, neighborhoods below the median income for BCS were twice as likely to have detectable lead levels in their water and had 1.5 times the mean concentration. This study underscores the need for action and supports previous studies that have identified a disparate burden to lead exposure among low socioeconomic populations within the United States. By examining the water quality in drinking fountains in publicly accessible parks, the results of our study provide public health professionals with important information about where infrastructure should be improved and the potential harms of lead in drinking fountain water. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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15 pages, 2388 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Integrated Approach to Hygiene, Sanitation, and Storage Practices for Improving Microbial Quality of Drinking Water Treated at Point of Use: A Case Study in Makwane Village, South Africa

by Resoketswe Charlotte Moropeng, Phumudzo Budeli and Maggy Ndombo Benteke Momba

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(12), 6313; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126313 - 10 Jun 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3496

Abstract

This study assessed the impact of sanitation practices, hygienic and storage conditions on the quality of drinking water treated at point-of-use in Makwane Village. Subsequent to implementation of low-cost Household Water Treatment Devices which are the biosand filter with zeolite-silver (BSZ-SICG) and silver-impregnated porous pot (SIPP) filters in Makwane village, a structured questionnaire was designed to collect the following information: age of caretakers, number of children under the age of five, water storage conditions, sanitation amenities, and hygiene practices. Water quality from the sources to household level was assessed using culture-based and molecular techniques. The results revealed a significant association between the presence of Escherichia coli in treated drinking water with the age group of caregivers and the number of children ofless than the age of five [OR (95% CI) = 8.4737 (0.147–3.3497), p = 0.0141923 and OR (95% CI) = 9.1667 (0.1848–3.0159); p = 0.0165830, respectively]. Moreover, significant association was noted between hygiene practices (washing of hands with/without soap) and water quality in storage containers [OR (95% CI) = 16.000 (0.6763–3.9495), p = 0.0000125]. These findings further prove that there is still a dire need for reconsidering hygiene education in rural areas as the health benefits of water treated at point of use (POU) coupled with safe-storage condition interventions might not be guaranteed without proper hygiene. The results further highlighted the importance of washing hands in improving microbial quality of drinking water, which is the key factor for fighting against infectious diseases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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20 pages, 22627 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Detection of Free-Living Amoebae and Their Intracellular Bacteria in Borehole Water before and after a Ceramic Pot Filter Point-of-Use Intervention in Rural Communities in South Africa

by Clarissa van der Loo, Catheleen Bartie, Tobias George Barnard and Natasha Potgieter

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(8), 3912; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083912 - 8 Apr 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3877

Abstract

Free-living amoebae (FLA) are ubiquitous in nature, whereas amoeba-resistant bacteria (ARB) have evolved virulent mechanisms that allow them to resist FLA digestion mechanisms and survive inside the amoeba during hostile environmental conditions. This study assessed the prevalence of FLA and ARB species in borehole water before and after a ceramic point-of-use intervention in rural households. A total of 529 water samples were collected over a five-month period from 82 households. All water samples were subjected to amoebal enrichment, bacterial isolation on selective media, and molecular identification using 16S PCR/sequencing to determine ARB species and 18S rRNA PCR/sequencing to determine FLA species present in the water samples before and after the ceramic pot intervention. Several FLA species including Acanthamoeba spp. and Mycobacterium spp. were isolated. The ceramic pot filter removed many of these microorganisms from the borehole water. However, design flaws could have been responsible for some FLA and ARB detected in the filtered water. FLA and their associated ARB are ubiquitous in borehole water, and some of these species might be potentially harmful and a health risk to vulnerable individuals. There is a need to do more investigations into the health risk of these organisms after point-of-use treatment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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Review

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16 pages, 6675 KiB

Open AccessReview

It’s a Long Way to the Tap: Microbiome and DNA-Based Omics at the Core of Drinking Water Quality

by Antonia Bruno, Giulia Agostinetto, Sara Fumagalli, Giulia Ghisleni and Anna Sandionigi

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(13), 7940; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137940 - 28 Jun 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3683

Abstract

Microbial communities interact with us and affect our health in ways that are only beginning to be understood. Microorganisms have been detected in every ecosystem on Earth, as well as in any built environment that has been investigated. Drinking water sources, drinking water treatment plants and distribution systems provide peculiar microbial ecological niches, dismantling the belief of the “biological simplicity” of drinking water. Nevertheless, drinking water microbiomes are understudied compared to other microbiomes. Recent DNA sequencing and meta-omics advancements allow a deeper understanding of drinking water microbiota. Thus, moving beyond the limits of day-to-day testing for specific pathogenic microbes, new approaches aim at predicting microbiome changes driven by disturbances at the macro-scale and overtime. This will foster an effective and proactive management of water sources, improving the drinking water supply system and the monitoring activities to lower public health risk. Here, we want to give a new angle on drinking water microbiome research. Starting from a selection of 231 scientific publications on this topic, we emphasize the value of biodiversity in drinking water ecosystems and how it can be related with industrialization. We then discuss how microbiome research can support sustainable drinking water management, encouraging collaborations across sectors and involving the society through responsible research and innovation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trends in Drinking Water Quality)

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