Talk:Water quality

Alkalinity
Not sure who added alkalinity&mdash;may have been me&mdash;and it is not a common measurement, so I would question its need to be present in the list. But I'm really interested in what you think it is redundant with? - Marshman 03:38, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Alakinity and agressivity are traits we look at in the industry in order to see what the water will do in the distribution system. I wouldn't be too quick to remove them.  They have more to do with lead and copper being pulled from the distribution system piping than a health risk by themselves.FOK SD OA 16:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with Marshman. If one looks in water quality databases such as those of the USGS and US EPA, alkalinity is a very common measurement and determinant not only of the presence of anthropogenic pollution or the parent rock through which water flows on its way to a surface water or a well, it is also the primary measure of the ability of the water to resist changes in pH when subject to acid pollution, say from acid rain. Leaving it out would be like leaving the Yankees out of a list of baseball teams. Stevens 08:13, 11 Nov 2006


 * I'm a student at UC Davis and one of our labs for our aqueous geochemistry course is about measuring and understaning the alkalinity of water. I think that says something about its significance. - Tony — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.143.4.111 (talk) 03:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Alkalinity is an extremely important parameter in water quality issues and should not be removed. I'm saying this as a Product Manager of an international F-500 water treatment company. Alkalinity measurements determine the ratio of free hydroxyl, carbonate and bicarbonate anions in water. That information is critical in determining the next steps in the treatment program, especially for potable water or use of that water for industrial applications (e.g. boilers and cooling towers).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.125.232 (talk) 15:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

merging "Contaminated water" here
Yes, it simply must be merged. What is the purpose in having it separate from here when the issues are so close to each other, and when both articles are so small?! GO for it! 62.135.86.173 15:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * A better merge would be into water pollution. Pollinator 05:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason we keep them separate is that raw, natural, water has WQ constituents of concern from natural elements (ie Pb, Cu, Ar, Natural Organic Materials (NOM), etc.) WQ is the industry term for tracking these constituents.  WQ is how you determine whether a stream is contaminated, polluted, or clean enough.  It is the base element of the discussion and will expand rapidly.FOK SD OA 17:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that Water quality is the best name for such an article.
 * Water quality parameters are those that define which water is polluted and which is clean (or safe for that matter...). Water of different qualities can be useful for different purposes. For example, wastewater effluent can be either a source of eutrophying nutrients to rivers or a source of useful water to other purposes like watering fields/golf courses. Water of a certain quality is fine for agricultural of industrial use but would be considered polluted for drinking. This is the heart of the debate about water shortage and water reuse. We use potable water to water the garden and we pour perfectly good water (eg. wastewater effluent)into the river because it is not clean.
 * That said, the Water quality article has problems and the water pollution article is in a decidedly better state. Up to you... :-) --Azaroonus 18:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't disagree with anything said here by Azaroonus. I will, however, suggest we give the space time to grow.  WQ is base level of understanding of the nature of water.  There is no such thing as clean in terms of natural water.  There is no black and there is no white.  There is simply clean enough based upon a legal framework of water quality standards; WQ being the key word.  This topic needs to stand alone.FOK SD OA 17:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Effluent in Payson, AZ
Here in Payson, Arizona, our water supply is obtained from wells. The aquifers from which these wells draw includes 70% natural water and 30% of percolated wastewater-treatment-plant effluent (It is allowed to percolate down from the Town Lakes, which are fed solely from effluent). We have fine water. I believe that we can up that proportion to 75% percolated effluent if we can rise above golf-course politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.42.86.239 (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

merging "safe water"
The term water quality is internationally accepted as a description of the constituents of concern in raw and treated waters. The term Safe Water, while to the point, is not a term of the industry and thereby would cause confusion as technical discussions move forward. We will need to keep the term WQ as the standards as we progress in the conversation about the constituents and water law. The Safe water page is a openning to water law, which is a huge. I would suggest we rename it to water law and let it progress from there on its own. WQ needs to stand on its own.FOK SD OA 17:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * strongly oppose merging safe water into water quality. this proposal is somewhat akin to merging wildlife into planet Earth.  water quality is a huge topic affecting ecosystems and natural water bodies that have nothing to do with safe water. Anlace 19:31, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * New proposal for merging of various articles on water quality and pollution: Water quality has various dimensions, depending on the context. I would distinguish (at least) between drinking water quality; quality of treated wastewater (both municipal and industrial); and ambient water quality (i.e. water quuality in rivers, lakes, groundwater and the sea). In all countries of the world water quality standards are distinguished between these categories of water. Therefore I suggest to have one "umbrella article" on water quality with references to three such (new) articles. The article on ambient water quality could be merged with the one on water pollution. The one on drinking water quality could be a sub-set of (municipal) water supply. And the one on wastewater quality could be linked to or merged with sanitation and/or sewage treatment. The article on safe water should, in my view, be merged with these new articles.--Mschiffler 23:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * strongly oppose any proposed merger of water quality with water pollution. these are both huge and different topics and this merger discussion has a long history of discussion with a consensus to keep these topics separate.  for one thing water quality is a concept that exists independent of man made sources.  it deals with chemical and physical characterization of a vast number of water systems.  water pollution is essentially human generated with some small arguable contributions from natural sources.  these are each VAST topics and if anything should be further split not merged.  the concept of merging safe water to drinking water is a long ongoing discussion and is certainly one that can be entertained.  again in the case of wastewater quality, it is probably best to let it evolve on its own, since it is a very large topic as are sanitation and sewage treatment.  Anlace 22:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm doing it all!
I will address all of your concerns, I'm doing an independent study project on water pollution/quality/erosion, and my exam is to update those pages. User:Jonwilliamsl(User_talk:Jonwilliamsl|talk]]|contribs) 00:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Please note that original research is not within Wikipedia guidelines. Thanks for your future interest in contributing through reliably sourced material. Anlace 15:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course-I will be simply adding more info that I find and expanding the pages. User:Jonwilliamsl(talk|contribs) 17:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Standards and reports: Canada
The text in this section does not discuss water quality standards and reports in Canada. It describes some stream restoration projects in Canada. The text should be moved to that article. Moreau1 (talk) 04:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Upon further review, I've reverted the text mentioned above and am copying it here, rather than into the stream restoration article. The latter focuses on technical aspects of the restoration process; it is not a respository for restoration case studies. Here is the reverted text, for possible future use in another article, perhaps a summary or overview of restoration projects.
 * In Canada, Manitoulin Streams Improvement Association has become a leading model for water quality and fisheries rehabilitation. The association partners with landowners, farmers, fishermen and the general public to improve water quality and the fisheries resource on Manitoulin Island and the Great Lakes. They do this by:
 * Restricting livestock access to certain points on the river or installing alternative watering sources like nose pumps.
 * Repair the Riparian Zone by planting trees and grasses to stabalize shorelines,provide habitat.
 * Create in stream habitat to increase fish and invertebrate populations.
 * Since 2000, Manitoulin Streams has rehabilitated 23 major sites on 4 waterways. They have had a Class Environmental Assessment conducted on 184 waterways on Manitoulin Island. The report identified 10 priority waterways that needed to be rehabilitated. Manitoulin Streams has conducted work on 4 of the ten and has plans to work on a 5th, the Mindemoya River in the Summer of 2010.
 * Moreau1 (talk) 04:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Reverted text on US drinking water program
This article is mainly about ambient water quality, but it has included a brief discussion about human consumption, i.e. drinking water quality, for illustrative purposes. The drinking water article and related articles (e.g. Bacteriological water analysis, Waterborne diseases, Water purification, etc.) are the appropriate place to provide more details and references. I reverted text that was drilling down into a more detailed drinking water discussion, which is unnecessary here. Perhaps adding some hatnotes such as 'Main', 'See also', etc. would be useful here.

It would also be useful to revise the remaining description of the US regulatory program in this article, to become a general overview of drinking water programs worldwide. Moreau1 (talk) 03:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge from Chemical Hydrology
The current Chemical hydrology contains much less than the current article here and even less than Freshwater environmental quality parameters. Unless there is a sound logical reason for its continued separation, I suggest it be merged here.  Velella  Velella Talk 12:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Concur with merging the Chemical hydrology article into this article and replacing that article with a redirect to this article.Thewellman (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Not a directory of analytical methods
This article is about water quality, primarily providing an introduction/overview of the concepts and process of WQ analysis, and providing a few examples of the types of tests that may be conducted. (The article also has the beginnings of descriptions of WQ standards for a few areas of the world.) The article is not a directory of every analytical method or procedure that happens to have a Wikipedia article. If you add up all the published physical, chemical, biological methods, etc. there are probably thousands of different methods out there. In this regard, some "See also" links have been deleted from the instant article: Biological monitoring working party, MBAS assay, Trophic state index. If someone wants to have a directory of WP articles about methods, a separate article can be created for such a directory. See also WP:LINKFARM. Moreau1 (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

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German version
There was a wrong translation. --House1630 (talk) 15:47, 28 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I have created a new article, and now it is correct. --Fmrauch (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2020 and 4 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LapisLazulite. Peer reviewers: Hannahclimbs, Restless Nomad.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Concerns over article content
Hi All,

We are contacting you regarding our request to add a reference on your pages. Recently we have been invited, accepted and published by MDPI, International Scientific Journal peer reviewed, regarding an identification methodology on microplastics/microorganisms, involved in ocean water, food and drinking water. The MDPI staff suggested us to publish our work's reference on Wikipedia. The research work has been peer reviewed by independent academic experts and our research team which led to our manuscript is composed by a Public College and a non profit academic entity. We are not advertising or promoting anything, we are just reporting academic research results and we did not receive any external funding.

It is our first time working with wikipedia and I hope this can clarify the situation. Looking forward to hear from you

Thanks --BaBuH007 (talk) 17:25, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * It is most inappropriate for MDPI to advise you to publish references to your work on Wikipedia. There are many reasons for this. Firstly Wikipedia looks to secondary or tertiary sources to support assertions made in articles. Only rarely are primary sources acceptable and then only where there is no secondary source and the matter being referenced is of some significance. Secondly, posting the same reference across many articles is regarded as link-spam, not an attempt to improve Wikipedia but an attempt to get more notice for your publication. Wikipedia is not there for the promotion of your reputation, the reputation of the journal or publisher or the reputation of the body you represent - for more on this please see WP:FORUM . I have made an identical response to the same question that you posed on my talk page. I am also pinging as you raised the identical query on their talk page. Asking the same question in many places on Wikipedia is also strongly frowned upon as Forum shopping, so please avoid that in future.  Velella  Velella Talk  20:06, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * WP:REFSPAM is completely unacceptable. You might want to find a less disreputable publisher than MDPI in the future. DMacks (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Edits for clarity and validity
Hello, I am a student of an environmental aqueous geochemistry class that is incorporating Wiki Education as part of our curriculum. I have listed some proposed changes/edits on this page: User:LapisLazulite/Water quality. I hope that these edits help in the article's concision/consistency. I will update this talk page with further proposed/completed edits. Please take a moment to review, thanks. LapisLazulite (talk) 08:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)


 * - As a Wikipedia editor you are, of course, most welcome to make any changes that you think are both pertinent and supported by reliable sources. Your suggestions are well thought through and at least some may well improve the article. However, be very careful in changing text in the lede. This should summarise text elsewhere in the article and there is no requirement to to source statements if they are sourced in the main text. This issue about potability arose some years ago when there was a debate around freshwater and potability with a misunderstanding amongst some that fresh equated to potable. It doesn't of course. Be very careful in quoting legislation and rules from one country only. I appreciate that the US is your home country but rules and legislation vary widely across the globe and it is best to try and take a world-wide view. Do be prepared for other editors reverting your changes and be prepared to argue for your suggested changes on the talk page. The end result should be a consensus that is consistent with reliable sources. Best of luck and welcome. Hope that you stick around long after your graduation.  Velella  Velella Talk 09:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)


 * - Thank you for the welcome and notice regarding content discrepancies. I'm happy to give explanation or revise where necessary. Regarding the lead/intro, I determined my edits were just since the first sentence's source had failed verification, my sources were consistent, and the second sentence was plagiarism. I appreciate the encouragement to focus my efforts globally, the WHO has been a helpful resource so far. Hopefully I can contribute more info about other countries (and other topics!) in the near future (after more reading). Kind regards. LapisLazulite (talk) 11:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 20 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mtorre2vu, Mkerns11.

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Relationship with drinking water?
I've just added some content under history and under public health that is about "drinking water quality". I am a bit undecided as the content could equally fit at the drinking water article. I've put it here for now as I think it goes beyond just the drinking water (i.e. could also apply to other uses of water) but would be happy to have a discussion if others have suggestions for this. - We don't actually have an article called "drinking water quality" - it redirects to drinking water quality standards. EMsmile (talk) 10:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * How would you envision a drinking water quality article differing from the drinking water and drinking water quality standards articles? Thewellman (talk) 16:30, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I have no clear picture in my mind yet but I think the hierarchy would be like this: "drinking water" is the parent article, then "drinking water quality" as a potential sub-article (if there is enough content for it) and then "drinking water quality standards" as the sub-sub-article. From that perspective, the term "drinking water quality" should perhaps rather redirect to Water quality rather than drinking water quality standards. But I am not sure.
 * Do you think my recent additions about history and public health fit well for water quality or they should have been in drinking water or a bit in both? Either way, the two articles need to fit with each other like puzzle pieces. Might require a bit more work. EMsmile (talk) 20:22, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I concur with your assessment of hierarchy. I'm neutral about where the information might be placed, but I agree it would be desirable to discuss organization of this material.  I suggest drinking water might be organized similarly to irrigation and water cooling; although the human health aspects of drinking water may encourage additional emphasis on water quality. Thewellman (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2023 (UTC)