Monitoring Results on Quality of Drinking Water Sourced from Taihu Lake in 2008-2012

Objectives Monitoring and early warning the quality of drinking water to ensure the safety of drinking water sourced from the Taihu lake.

Methods According to the requirement of'The program of monitoring the quality of drinking water sourced from the Taihu lake'issued by the Department of Health of Jiangsu Province in 2008, twelve central water supply units in Wuxi and Suzhou city which using water from the Taihu lake as water source were selected. The quality of 117 pairs of water samples both from the finished water of water supply units and peripheral water was monitored and assessed by a total analysis including 106 indices.

Results The quality of 6 from 117 drinking water samples were unqualified in 2008-2012, and the percent of pass rate was 94.9%. Four items in regular indices (total coliforms, total plate count, odor and taste and aluminum) and one items in non-regular indices (ammonia nitrogen) exceeded the standard limits.

Conclusions In spite of many indices in water quality assessment were not exceeded the limits, some of them were very close to the limits. Forty two items of regular indices could reflect the quality of drinking water.