Providing safe drinking water: a challenge for humanity

Safe Drinking Water : an Ongoing Challenge

Metallic iron for safe drinking water worldwide

A new concept for household and large-scale safe drinking water production is presented. Raw water is successively filtered through a series of sand and iron filters. Sand filters mostly remove suspended particles (media filtration) and iron filters remove anions, cations, micropollutants, natural organic matter, and micro-organisms including pathogens (reactive filtration). Accordingly, treatm...

Risk management for assuring safe drinking water.

Millions of people die every year around the world from diarrheal diseases much of which is caused by contaminated drinking water. By contrast, drinking water safety is largely taken for granted by many citizens of affluent nations. The ability to drink water that is delivered into households without fear of becoming ill may be one of the key defining characteristics of developed nations in rel...

Biological approaches for addressing the grand challenge of providing access to clean drinking water

The U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) recently published a document presenting "Grand Challenges for Engineering". This list was proposed by leading engineers and scientists from around the world at the request of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Fourteen topics were selected for these grand challenges, and at least seven can be addressed using the tools and methods of biolo...

The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 and Its Role in Providing Access to Safe Drinking Water in the United States.

In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Safe Drinking Water Act, the first piece of legislation of its kind to provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for overseeing the nation's drinking water supply. The law has proven instrumental in setting standards for ensuring that the US population can access drinking water that is safe. However, the law delegates much of its monitoring ...