Analysis of Chemical Parameters of Drinking Water from Centralized Water Supply Systems in the Voronezh Region

Introduction: Drinking water is a strategic resource. Assessing its quality parameters is essential for ensuring the hygienic safety of the population.

Objective: To identify priority chemical parameters and disadvantaged territories in terms of drinking water quality for developing measures of primary prevention of waterborne diseases in the population.

Materials and Methods: We used data retrieved from the regional public health surveillance information fund to analyze the results of testing 4.2 thousand water samples taken at 175 monitoring sites in 34 administrative territories of the Voronezh Region for six priority chemical parameters by comparing them with the current water quality standards. Methods of descriptive statistics were applied to assess data distribution.

Results: The analysis of discrete data series of chemical parameters of drinking water quality showed their high variability, pronounced right-sided asymmetry and positive kurtosis, all indicating their abnormal distribution associated with frequent minima values at the lower sensitivity limit of laboratory testing techniques and strong variations in all indicators between the regional areas. We constructed variation series based on exceedances in total hardness (43.46 % of the samples), total iron (4.46 %), nitrates (2.47 %), manganese (1.61 %), boron (0.35 %), and fluorides (0.07 %). We also identified territories and monitoring sites with exceedances registered. A statistically significant moderate correlation was found between total water hardness and the incidence of urolithiasis in the adult population (r = 0.36, t_test. = 2.33 > t_table = 2.04, α = 0.05).

Conclusion: For primary waterborne disease prevention in the areas of concern, it is essential to make drinking water meet standards for water quality; the population should use home water filters. 

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