Water intended for human consumption - Part II: Treatment alternatives, monitoring issues and resulting costs

EU Directive 98/83, which aims at achieving beneficial effects in the quality of water and in public health, has set standards for water intended for human consumption, monitoring requirements of the new standards, and strategies to take remedial action to address failures. The incorporation of the Directive's content into the regulations of each Member State will benefit consumers who receive drinking water that meets up-to-date World Health Organization standards. As a result, they will be less likely to experience long-term adverse health effects. However, new costs arise from the new regulations that fall on water suppliers deriving from the need to meet the more stringent standards, and they are passed on by water authorities to consumers, mostly businesses and industry, in the form of increased water charges. In an attempt to evaluate these costs, an overview of main drinking water treatments is presented and different treatment schemes are analyzed to obtain cost curves by means of national (Italian) and international published data. Moreover, monitoring costs for water quality analysis, based on the requirements of Directive 98/83/EC, are evaluated and compared with the ones derived from the previous 80/778/EEC.