The quality of drinking water in the European Union is ensured by measuring parameters established in the recast of the Drinking Water Directive (DWD) 2020/2184. Respect to the former Directive, microbiological parameters have been extended to additionally cover somatic coliphages as an indicator of removal efficiency following water treatment and Legionella as a parameter for the risk assessment in buildings. Implementation of these parameters and their transposition is of utmost importance for the Member States to ensure an adequate level of protection for human health. However, existing standardised methods used to measure the new microbiological parameters present technical drawbacks. Alternative methods may provide a solution to overcome the technical limitations of standardised methods and to significantly reduce time to results allowing an early action in case of detected contamination. According to DWD 2020/2184, such methods can be implemented for analysing somatic coliphages and Legionella if their reliability is at least equal to that of the standard method. The Guidance Note presents an overview of current and novel methods for testing the new microbiological parameters and provides recommendation on harmonising the choice of alternative methods at EU level.

NIEGOWSKA Magdalena Zofia;  PITKÄNEN T;  SOMMER Regina;  BRANDÃO João;  BONADONNA Lucia;  BUDIŠOVÁ Dana;  BURLION Nadine;  GASSILLOUD Benoit;  PISSARIDES Nicholas;  PROKSOVA Miroslava;  RUPEL Tatjana;  SCHAEFER Benedikt;  SCHETS Ciska;  ŠLAPOKAS Tommy;  VARGHA Marta;  LETTIERI Teresa; 

2022-06-29

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC129755

978-92-76-53688-8 (online),   

1831-9424 (online),   

EUR 31130 EN,    OP KJ-NA-31130-EN-N (online),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC129755,   

10.2760/14494 (online),