title: Adaptation and evaluation of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) for use as an effective tool to characterize drinking source water quality.
abstract: Protecting drinking source water quality is a critical step in ensuring a safe supply of drinking water. Increasingly, drinking source water protection programs rely on the active participation of various stakeholders with differing degrees of water science knowledge. A drinking source water quality index presents a potential communication and analysis tool to facilitate cooperation between diverse interest groups as well as represent composite water quality. We tested the effectiveness of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) in capturing expert assessments of drinking water quality. In cooperation with a panel of drinking water quality experts we identified a core set of parameters to reflect common source water concerns. Drinking source water target values were drafted for use in the index corresponding to two basic treatment levels. Index scores calculated using the core parameter set and associated source water target values were strongly correlated with expert assessments of water quality. We recommend a modified index calculation procedure to accommodate parameters measured at different frequencies within any particular study period. The resulting drinking source water CCME WQI provides a valuable means of monitoring, communicating, and understanding surface source water quality.
authors.affiliation: Water and Aquatic Sciences Research Program, Department of Biology, University of Victoria, PO Box 3020 Station CSC, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3N5, Canada. hurleytj@uvic.ca
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hurley
authors.forename: Rehan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sadiq
authors.forename: Asit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mazumder
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D060766:Drinking Water; D006076:Government; D054879:Halogenation; D060753:Water Quality
chemical_list: D060766:Drinking Water