DRINKING WATER QUALITY BIG QUESTION: HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE 100% COMPLIANCE WITH DRINKING WATER STANDARDS AT POINT OF USE BY 2050? Report Ref. No. 17/DW/13/2 Programme Area & Reference Drinking Water Quality & Health: At the Tap DW/13 Report Title Drinking Water Quality Big Question: How Can We Achieve 100% Compliance with Drinking Water Standards at Point of Use by 2050? Project Management Mandy Fletton, on behalf of UKWIR Contractor University of Sheffield Author of Report Boxall, J.B. Lamb, N.S.T. Speight, V.L. Period Covered 2016 - 2017 Project Steering Group John Haley, Yorkshire Water Chris Jones, Northumbrian Water UK Water Industry Research Limited provides a framework for a common research programme to undertake projects which are considered to be fundamental to water operators on ‘one voice’ issues. Its contributors are the water and sewerage companies and the water supply companies of England and Wales, Scottish Water, Northern Ireland Water and Irish Water. UKWIR Report Ref. No. 17/DW/13/2 All statements contained in this document are made without responsibility on the part of UK Water Industry Research Limited and its Contractors, and are not to be relied upon as statements or representations of facts; and UK Water Industry Research Limited does not make or give, nor has any person authority on its behalf to make or give, any representation or warranty whatever in relation to the contents of this document or any associated software. Published by UK Water Industry Research Limited Room EA1, 1-7 Great George Street, London, SW1P 3AA. First published 2017 ISBN 1 84057 829 7  UK Water Industry Research Limited 2017 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of UK Water Industry Research Limited. Printed by Webree.com Ltd. UKWIR Report Ref. No. 17/DW/13/2 UK WATER INDUSTRY RESEARCH LIMITED DRINKING WATER QUALITY BIG QUESTION: HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE 100% COMPLIANCE WITH DRINKING WATER STANDARDS AT POINT OF USE BY 2050? Executive Summary Objectives UKWIR has undertaken an ambitious programme to define longer term, strategic research needs in key areas via its Big Questions initiative. Drinking water quality is the third such area to be developed, addressing the Big Question: How can we achieve 100% compliance with drinking water standards at point of use by 2050? To support the development of the drinking water quality research programme, a community-owned list of prioritised research needs to achieve 100% compliance for drinking water quality was produced. The process for deriving the research programme included the following tasks: 1. Perform a literature review to summarise the degree of current knowledge about drinking water contaminants across the water cycle, including gaps, uncertainty and the degree of risk associated with delivering water of desirable quality (i.e., 100% compliant). 2. Score the degree of knowledge and level of risk associated with each contaminant/issue across the water cycle to perform a preliminary screening. 3. For the contaminants/issues identified as high risk and low degree of knowledge, develop an agreed prioritisation of research needs in collaboration with the drinking water community. 4. Finalise the research programme, identifying synergies and overlap with other ongoing research worldwide. Methodology The approach for the prioritisation of drinking water quality research needs was based upon a contaminant prioritisation methodology developed for the US Army Corps of Engineers, which considers the degree of current knowledge including uncertainty and gaps and maps that against the degree of risk associated with each contaminant. Once scores have been assigned, each contaminant is plotted on a quadrant to identify the contaminants with lowest knowledge and highest risk, which should be the focus of future research. For this project, each contaminant at each location in the water cycle was assigned a score for knowledge and risk, based upon a literature review and discussions at the prioritisation workshop held at the University of Sheffield on 9 December, 2016. The score for knowledge judged the existence of scientific or engineering knowledge about a particular contaminant at that location, not the widespread dissemination of that knowledge or its adoption into the water industry. A score