Assessment of the Water Supply System and the Quality of Drinking Water from Centralized Sources in the City of Vladimir

Introduction: It is known that the quality of drinking water and its availability are key factors determining health of the population. The Vladimir water supply system is one of the oldest in Russia. Today, most of the pipelines of the urban water distribution network have significant physical wear, which can significantly affect the quality of tap water.

Objective: To assess of the quality of drinking water from centralized sources in the city of Vladimir for compliance with hygienic standards.

Materials and methods: Water from intake sources, before supply to the distribution system, and in the tap was tested for compliance with water quality standards. We used the results of measuring 17 water quality parameters by the accredited chemical laboratory of the Water Quality Control Center of “Vladimirvodokanal” for 2019–2023 and our own results of testing 9 water samples, three samples per district, for 20 quality indicators in the chemical laboratory of the Department of Biology and Ecology of the Vladimir State University in 2023. The “Kapel-205” capillary electrophoresis system was used to determine the ions; heavy metals were measured using the Spectroscan MAX-G X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Other water quality parameters were established using methods of potentiometry, conductometry, and titrimetry. Classical methods of variation statistics were applied for data analysis in Microsoft Excel.

Results: We found that, depending on the source of water intake, the levels of fluoride ions and solids in some districts exceeded maximum allowable concentrations (mean values in the Leninsky district were 1.57 mg/dm3 and 7.54 mg-eq/dm3, respectively). At the same time, our findings for the ions of iron (0.007–0.028 mg/dm3), zinc (0.054–0.078 mg/dm3), copper (0.014–0.072 mg/dm3), cobalt (0.001 mg/dm3), potassium (the mean for the Leninsky district = 0.51 mg/dm3), sodium (the mean for the Leninsky district = 5.1 mg/dm3), and sulfate (the mean for the Frunzensky district = 18.08 mg/dm3) were below the lower limits of acceptable hygienic standards.

Conclusions: The quality of water from centralized sources of the city as a whole complies with the requirements of Russian Sanitary Rules and Norms SanPiN 2.1.3684–21, except for fluoride ions and solids; yet, it does not meet some acceptable hygienic standards. Artificial drinking water mineralization is recommended to the residents of the city of Vladimir to make up for possible deficiency of essential elements.

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