Incorporating taste and odour problems in water safety plans
ABSTRACT Many water utilities are at least occasionally affected by unpleasant taste and odour (T&O) in drinking water. For decades, aesthetic water quality has been of secondary concern to water producers, with water safety being the primary focus. However, there has been a recent shift towards prioritising consumer satisfaction, encompassing not only services, but also water quality, including T&O issues, which can negatively impact the supplier's reputation. Starting to address a T&O problem until consumers' complaints become massive is too late and puts water producers under great stress to take effective action in a timely manner. Rather, a preventive approach is necessary. The most effective approach is to include T&O as a hazard to assess and manage in the context of developing a water safety plan (WSP) for the supply system. The development of a WSP provides an excellent platform for including the stakeholders needed to control the source of T&O events, as this often requires multistakeholder cooperation. Our review provides a comprehensive guide to addressing T&O occurrences and shows how this can be included in the framework of WSP development. It identifies supporting tools and illustrates the information given with a number of examples from water suppliers' practice.
Authors
- Magdalena Ujević Bošnjak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2740-8706)
- Triantafyllos Kaloudis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1909-0256)
- Theodoros M. Triantis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7899-176X)
- Simona Scardala (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6220-8160)
- David Spiteri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9195-7291)
- Anastasia Hiskia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3674-3223)
- Andreas Dunkel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4445-6144)
- Maura Manganelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5650-8191)
- František Kožíšek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0107-6969)
- Meriç Albay (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9726-945X)
- Emanuela Testai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3113-5103)
- Ingrid Chorus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6714-7865)
- Martin Steinhaus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9879-1474)
- Reyhan Albay
Institutions
- Istanbul Şehir University (TR)
- National Centre of Scientific Research "Demokritos" (GR)
- Istituto Superiore di Sanità (IT)
- Water Services Corporation (Malta) (MT)
- Hrvatski zavod za javno zdravstvo (HR)
- German Environment Agency (DE)
- National Institute of Public Health (CZ)
- Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (DE)
- EYDAP (Greece) (GR)
- Istanbul University (TR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Water and Health
- Published
- 2024-09-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2166/wh.2024.166
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Chemical Sensor Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.74
Funders
- Directorate-General XII, Science, Research, and Development