Abstract
The quality of drinking-water supplies is of fundamental importance to public health and sustainable development. Here, we provide a spatial assessment of the tap-water quality across mainland China. We examine natural and anthropogenic origins of low quality as well as its association with public health risks. By quantifying key indicators, including total organic carbon, ionic conductivity and disinfection by-products (DBPs), we find that precipitation is a crucial factor driving the change of organic matter content and ionic conductivity of tap-water, especially for arid and semi-arid regions. Although the concentration of DBPs is closely related to the organic matter content, the occurrence of highly toxic DBPs is more subject to anthropogenic factors such as economic development and pollution emission. We show that nanofiltration is an effective point-of-use treatment to reduce the adverse effects of DBPs. The present results highlight the potential health hazards associated with low-quality drinking water, suggesting that countries and regions experiencing rapid socioeconomical development might face high levels of DBP toxicity and should consider adoption of sustainability solutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The water-quality data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. All other data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information.
References
Prüss-Ustün, A. et al. Burden of disease from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene in low- and middle-income settings: a retrospective analysis of data from 145 countries. Trop. Med. Int. Health 19, 894–905 (2014).
Bain, R. et al. Accounting for water quality in monitoring access to safe drinking-water as part of the Millennium Development Goals: lessons from five countries. Bull. World Health Organ. 90, 228–235A (2012).
Maqbool, T. et al. Exploring the relative changes in dissolved organic matter for assessing the water quality of full-scale drinking water treatment plants using a fluorescence ratio approach. Water Res. 183, 116125 (2020).
Li, C. et al. Tracking changes in composition and amount of dissolved organic matter throughout drinking water treatment plants by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography–quadrupole mass spectrometry. Sci. Total Environ. 609, 123–131 (2017).
Sedlak, DavidL. The chlorine dilemma. Science 331, 42–43 (2011).
Shannon, M. A. et al. Science and technology for water purification in the coming decades. Nature 452, 301–310 (2008).
Li, X.-F. & Mitch, W. A. Drinking water disinfection byproducts (DBPs) and human health effects: multidisciplinary challenges and opportunities. Environ. Sci. Technol. 52, 1681–1689 (2018).
Richardson, S. D. et al. Occurrence, genotoxicity, and carcinogenicity of regulated and emerging disinfection by-products in drinking water: a review and roadmap for research. Mutat. Res. 636, 178–242 (2007).
Costet, N. et al. Water disinfection by-products and bladder cancer: is there a European specificity? A pooled and meta-analysis of European case-control studies. Occup. Environ. Med. 68, 379–385 (2011).
Hao, X., Chen, G. & Yuan, Z. Water in China. Water Res. 169, 115256 (2020).
Li, Z. et al. Occurrence and distribution of disinfection byproducts in domestic wastewater effluent, tap water, and surface water during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in China. Environ. Sci. Technol. 55, 4103–4114 (2021).
Zhou, X. et al. Factors influencing DBPs occurrence in tap water of Jinhua Region in Zhejiang Province, China. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Saf. 171, 813–822 (2019).
Wang, C. et al. Occurrence, migration and health risk of phthalates in tap water, barreled water and bottled water in Tianjin, China. J. Hazard. Mater. 408, 124891 (2021).
Ding, H. et al. Occurrence, profiling and prioritization of halogenated disinfection by-products in drinking water of China. Environ. Sci. Process. Impacts 15, 1424–1429 (2013).
Malliarou, E., Collins, C., Graham, N. & Nieuwenhuijsen, M. J. Haloacetic acids in drinking water in the United Kingdom. Water Res. 39, 2722–2730 (2005).
Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) Information Collection Rule (ICR), United States Environmental Protection Agency, DBP ICR “Aux 1” database (2000).
Jeong, C. H. et al. Occurrence and toxicity of disinfection byproducts in European drinking waters in relation with the HIWATE epidemiology study. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46, 12120–12128 (2012).
Ding, Y. et al. Chemodiversity of soil dissolved organic matter. Environ. Sci. Technol. 54, 6174–6184 (2020).
Zhu, J. et al. Carbon stocks and changes of dead organic matter in China’s forests. Nat. Commun. 8, 151 (2017).
Jiao, N. et al. Correcting a major error in assessing organic carbon pollution in natural waters. Sci. Adv. 7, eabc7318 (2021).
Tong, Y. et al. Improvement in municipal wastewater treatment alters lake nitrogen to phosphorus ratios in populated regions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 11566 (2020).
Tong, Y. et al. Decline in Chinese lake phosphorus concentration accompanied by shift in sources since 2006. Nat. Geosci. 10, 507–511 (2017).
Fang, C. et al. Characterization of dissolved organic matter and its derived disinfection byproduct formation along the Yangtze River. Environ. Sci. Technol. 55, 12326–12336 (2021).
Ran, L., Lu, X. X. & Xin, Z. Erosion-induced massive organic carbon burial and carbon emission in the Yellow River basin, China. Biogeosciences 11, 945–959 (2014).
Wang, S. et al. Reduced sediment transport in the Yellow River due to anthropogenic changes. Nat. Geosci. 9, 38–41 (2016).
Bulletin of China Marine Disaster, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Bulletin of China Marine Disaster (2018).
Wang, Y. et al. Profile storage of organic/inorganic carbon in soil: from forest to desert. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 1925–1931 (2010).
Bond, T., Huang, J., Templeton, M. R. & Graham, N. Occurrence and control of nitrogenous disinfection by-products in drinking water—a review. Water Res. 45, 4341–4354 (2011).
Szczuka, A. et al. Regulated and unregulated halogenated disinfection byproduct formation from chlorination of saline groundwater. Water Res. 122, 633–644 (2017).
de Vera, G. A. et al. Biodegradability of DBP precursors after drinking water ozonation. Water Res. 106, 550–561 (2016).
Chuang, Y.-H. et al. Pilot-scale comparison of microfiltration/reverse osmosis and ozone/biological activated carbon with UV/hydrogen peroxide or UV/free chlorine AOP treatment for controlling disinfection byproducts during wastewater reuse. Water Res. 152, 215–225 (2019).
Liu, X. et al. Characterization of carbonyl disinfection by-products during ozonation, chlorination, and chloramination of dissolved organic matters. Environ. Sci. Technol. 54, 2218–2227 (2020).
Wright, J. M. et al. Disinfection by-product exposures and the risk of specific cardiac birth defects. Environ. Health Perspect. 125, 269–277 (2017).
Morris, R. D. et al. Chlorination, chlorination by-products, and cancer: a meta-analysis. Am. J. Public Health 82, 955–963 (1992).
Benmarhnia, T. et al. Heterogeneity in the relationship between disinfection by-products in drinking water and cancer: a systematic review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 15, 979 (2018).
Jie, H. China Cancer Registry Annual Report 2018. (People’s Medical Publishing House, 2018).
Yang, Y. et al. Toxic impact of bromide and iodide on drinking water disinfected with chlorine or chloramines. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48, 12362–12369 (2014).
Liu, L. et al. Spatio-temporal variations and input patterns on the legacy and novel brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in coastal rivers of North China. Environ. Pollut. 283, 117093 (2021).
Chen, B. et al. Roles and knowledge gaps of point-of-use technologies for mitigating health risks from disinfection byproducts in tap water: a critical review. Water Res. 200, 117265 (2021).
Wang, L., Sun, Y. & Chen, B. Rejection of haloacetic acids in water by multi-stage reverse osmosis: efficiency, mechanisms, and influencing factors. Water Res. 144, 383–392 (2018).
Chen, B. et al. Removal of disinfection byproducts in drinking water by flexible reverse osmosis: efficiency comparison, fates, influencing factors, and mechanisms. J. Hazard. Mater. 401, 123408 (2021).
Hebert, A. et al. Innovative method for prioritizing emerging disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water on the basis of their potential impact on public health. Water Res. 44, 3147–3165 (2010).
Ersan, M. S. et al. Chloramination of iodide-containing waters: formation of iodinated disinfection byproducts and toxicity correlation with total organic halides of treated waters. Sci. Total Environ. 697, 134142 (2019).
Wu, Q.-Y. et al. Non-volatile disinfection byproducts are far more toxic to mammalian cells than volatile byproducts. Water Res. 183, 116080 (2020).
Zhang, H. et al. Characterization of unknown brominated disinfection byproducts during chlorination using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48, 3112–3119 (2014).
Han, J., Zhang, X., Jiang, J. & Li, W. How much of the total organic halogen and developmental toxicity of chlorinated drinking water might be attributed to aromatic halogenated DBPs? Environ. Sci. Technol. 55, 5906–5916 (2021).
Jiang, J., Han, J. & Zhang, X. Nonhalogenated aromatic DBPs in drinking water chlorination: a gap between NOM and halogenated aromatic DBPs. Environ. Sci. Technol. 54, 1646–1656 (2020).
US Method 552.3: Determination of Haloacetic Acids and Dalapon in Drinking Water by Liquid–Liquid Microextraction, Derivatization, and Gas Chromatography with Electron Capture Detection EPA 815-B-03-002, Revision 1.0 (EPA, 2003).
US Method 551.1: Determination of Chlorination Disinfection Byproducts, Chlorinated Solvents, and Halogenated Pesticides/Herbicides in Drinking Water by Liquid–Liquid Extraction and Gas Chromatography With Electron-Capture Detection Revision 1.0 (EPA, 1995).
Lau, S. S. et al. Assessing additivity of cytotoxicity associated with disinfection byproducts in potable reuse and conventional drinking waters. Environ. Sci. Technol. 54, 5729–5736 (2020).
Chen, W., Westerhoff, P., Leenheer, J. A. & Booksh, K. Fluorescence excitation−emission matrix regional integration to quantify spectra for dissolved organic matter. Environ. Sci. Technol. 37, 5701–5710 (2003).
Anselin, L., Syabri, I. & Smirnov, O. Visualizing Multivariate Spatial Correlation with Dynamically Linked Windows. New Tools for Spatial Data Analysis: Proceedings of the Specialist Meeting. 1–20 (2002).
Geoda Documentation, Geoda Workbook (2022).
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (no. JQ21032, W.Y.), Key Research and Development Plan of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (no. 2019YFD1100104 and no. 2019YFC1906501, W.Y.).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
W.Y. and M.E. originated the idea and led the research design. M.L. led the data compilation, conducted the analysis and led the write-up of the paper. M.L. and W.W. did the experiment. N.G., R.Z., Y.L., M.E. and W.Y. reviewed the paper, exchanged ideas and prepared the final version of the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Sustainability thanks Baiyang Chen, Antonio Azara, Xiangru Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–17, Discussion and Tables 1–7.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, M., Graham, N., Wang, W. et al. Spatial assessment of tap-water safety in China. Nat Sustain 5, 689–698 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00898-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00898-5
This article is cited by
-
Scarcity and quality risks for future global urban water supply
Landscape Ecology (2024)
-
Mimicking reductive dehalogenases for efficient electrocatalytic water dechlorination
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Connection between health risk and heavy metals in agricultural soils of China: a study based on current field investigations
Environmental Geochemistry and Health (2023)
-
Tap water and bladder cancer in China
Nature Sustainability (2022)
-
Performance study of fly-ash-derived coagulant in removing natural organic matter from drinking water: synthesis, characterization, and modelling
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (2022)