LWR 245 WATER QUALITY

7. Water Quality Standards and Criteria

Topics covered
⚫ Definition of Standard and Criterion
⚫ Water quality standards
⚫ Criteria for drinking water and irrigation water
⚫ Ambient water quality monitoring and its importance
⚫ Effluent monitoring activities
⚫ Waste and effluent legislation in Zimbabwe
⚫ Discharge permits/licences
⚫ Impact of effluent discharge into the environment
Standards and Criteria
⚫ Standard: a definite level of achievement aspired to or
attained.
⚫ Standards are about definite levels of quality (or
achievement, or performance).
⚫ Criterion: a property or characteristic by which the
quality of something may be judged.
⚫ Specifying criteria nominates qualities of interest and
utility but does not have anything to offer, or make any
assumptions about, actual quality
Water Quality Standards
⚫ Each country has its own water quality standards that
determine the degree to which water should be purified,
depending on the purpose it will be used for.
⚫ There are no universally recognized and accepted
international standards for drinking water.
⚫ Examples of Standards includes:
European Drinking Water Directives (European Union)
US EPA (USA) establishes standards as required by the Safe
Drinking Water Act.
WHO Guidelines on the Standards of Water (for diverse uses)
Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) for drinking water.
Range of standards
– list parametric values, which can be expressed in terms of:
(a) Observed substance concentration (e.g. 30mg/L)
(b) Count such as 400 colony forming unit/L
(c) Statistical value (e.g. avg. Cu concentration of 3mg/L)
– Specify sampling location
– Sampling methods
– Sampling frequency,
– Analytical methods, and
– Laboratory accreditation
- Analytical Quality Control
Criteria for Drinking Water
⚫ They SPECIFY characteristics by which drinking water
may be judged, in relation to:
⚫ Chemical – DO; pH; Hardness; Total Dissolved Solids;
Toxic Substances; Other Pollutants (nitrogen, chlorides,
trace organics)
⚫ Physical – Solids (TDS & SS); Turbidity (colloids); Color
(true and apparent); Temperature; Taste or Odor;
Electrical Conductivity; Radioactivity
⚫ Biological – Coliform
Irrigation Water Criteria
⚫ pH
⚫ Salinity Hazard
⚫ Sodium Hazard (Sodium Adsorption Ration or SAR)
⚫ Carbonate and bicarbonates in relation with the Ca & Mg
content
⚫ Other trace elements
⚫ Toxic anions
⚫ Nutrients
⚫ Free chlorine
Ambient Water Quality monitoring
⚫ Ambient Water Quality (AWQ) monitoring seeks to make a
measurement of the pristine conditions of water bodies.
⚫ The term ambient refers to the immediate, undisturbed
surroundings of the environment.
⚫ An ambient monitoring exercise measures concentrations of
various chemical water quality parameters which include
biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand
(COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, nitrates and phosphates.
⚫ These parameters provide essential information on the state
of a water body.
AWQ monitoring…
⚫ They are also used to assess the level of water pollution and its
fitness for the various purposes such as drinking, recreation,
irrigation and aquatic life support.
⚫ AWQ monitoring assesses the impact of human activities
within a catchment area.
⚫ These activities vary from manufacturing, mining,
construction, runoff from agricultural activities, urban runoff to
the discharge of treated and untreated sewage into water
bodies.
⚫ Information generated from AWQ monitoring is crucial for
water resource management, planning and decision making.
Importance of AWQ monitoring
⚫ It characterizes water and identifies changes or trends in water
quality over time;
⚫ Identifies specific existing or emerging water quality
problems;
⚫ It gathers information for the design of specific pollution
prevention or remediation programs;
⚫ It determines if compliance with pollution regulation is being
met or if implementation of effective pollution control action is
needed;
Water quality information is important for public safety,
environmental protection, and economic growth.
Effluent monitoring activities
⚫ In addition to Ambient water monitoring, EMA also monitors
the following, in line with its mandate of ensuring
environmental protection:
1. Direct discharges from industries, agricultural and mining
operations; it includes sewage treatment plants, settling
ponds and septic tanks, mining discharges and agricultural
waste such as the disposal of waste from piggery projects;
2. Bio monitoring, which is the assessment of the ecological
conditions of water bodies and their ability to sustain life.
This involves examining the organisms that live in these
water bodies.
Waste and effluent legislation in Zim
⚫ The Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27) and
Statutory Instrument 7 of 2007 Environmental
Management (Effluent and Solid Waste Disposal)
Regulations govern effluent discharge in Zimbabwe.
⚫ The Act defines effluent as “waste water or other fluid
originating from domestic, agricultural and industrial
activity, whether treated or untreated and whether
discharged directly or indirectly into the environment”.
Waste and Effluent legislation in Zim…
⚫ The Act compels all operators who discharge effluent into the
environment to:
1. Provide the Environment Management Board with accurate
information on the quantity and quality of the discharge;
2. Discharge effluent or other pollutants originating from trade
or industrial undertaking only into an existing sewerage
system;
3. Get an effluent discharge licence issued by the Agency
(EMA) and pay a prescribed fee for such discharge;
4. Install an appropriate plant for the treatment of effluent
before it is discharged into the environment.
Discharge Permits/Licences
⚫ The Agency is guided by the licence classification criteria in issuing
the effluent discharge licences and testing the parameters of the
discharge as outlined in the Fourth Schedule of the Statutory
Instrument .
⚫ The licences are classified as follows:
✔ A blue licence in respect of a disposal which is considered to be
environmentally safe;
✔ A green licence in respect of a disposal that is considered to present
a low environmental hazard;
✔ A yellow licence in respect of a disposal; which is considered to
present a medium environmental hazard; and
✔ A red licence in respect of a disposal that is considered to present a
high environmental hazard.
Selected effluent discharge standards in Zim
Parameter Blue Green Yellow Red

Sensitive Normal

Ammonia (N), mg/l ≤0.5 ≤0.5 ≤1.0 ≤1.5 ≤0.3

Nitrite-nitrogen, mg/l ≤3 ≤3 ≤5 ≤8 ≤10

Nitrogen Total (N), mg/l ≤10 ≤10 ≤20 ≤30 ≤50

Boron (B), mg/l ≤0.5 ≤0.5 ≤1.0 ≤1.5 ≤2

BOD, mg/l ≤15 ≤30 ≤50 ≤100 ≤120

COD, mg/l ≤30 ≤60 ≤90 ≤150 ≤200

Conductivity (µS/cm) ≤200 ≤1000 ≤2000 ≤3000 ≤3500

DO % saturation ≥75 ≥60 ≥50 ≥30 ≥15

FC (#/100 ml) ≤1000 ≤1000 >1000 >1500 ≤2000

Helminth eggs (#/100 ml) ≤1000 ≤1000 >1000 >1000 ≤2000

Iron (Fe), mg/l ≤0.3 ≤1 ≤2 ≤5 ≤8

Lead (Pb), mg/l ≤0.05 ≤0.05 ≤0.1 ≤0.2 ≤0.5

Selected effluent discharge standards in
Zim…
Parameter Blue Green Yellow Red

Sensitive Normal

Oxygen absorbed, mg/l ≤5 ≤10 ≤15 ≤25 ≤40

PH (pH units) 6.0 – 7.5 6-9 5–6 4–5 0–4

9-10 10-12 12-14

Total-PO4- (P), mg/l ≤0.5 ≤0.5 ≤1.5 ≤3 ≤5

Potassium (K), mg/l * * * * <500

TDS, mg/l ≤100 ≤500 ≤1500 ≤2000 ≥3000

Temperature deg. C <25 <35 <40 ≤40 ≤45

Total heavy metals, mg/l ≤1.0 ≤2.0 ≤4 ≤10 ≤20

TSS, mg/l ≤10 ≤25 ≤50 ≤100 ≤150

Turbidity (NTU) ≤5 ≤5
Impacts of effluent discharge into
the environment
⚫ Eutrophication due to high levels of nitrates and phosphates;
⚫ Oxygen depletion in water bodies affecting aquatic life;
⚫ Drinking water costs sky rocket;
⚫ Bio-accumulation of heavy metals in organisms;
⚫ Spread of water borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid;
⚫ A decline in the water quality leading to health problems;
⚫ Reduced ecosystem services and the provision of fisheries.