Although water quality has been improved in the last two decades, water pollution by organic contaminants has remained a non-negligible issue in China. It is worthwhile to assess human exposure risks to waterborne organic contaminants and find the relation between them and carcinogenic risks. This work reviews the spatiotemporal patterns of water quality and typical organic contaminants in drinking water sources (i.e., surface water, groundwater, and tap water) in relation to age-standardized incidences of total cancers in China over 16 years. The improvement of water quality for drinking water sources seemed to produce a positive effect in reducing incidences of polluted water-related diseases and digestive system cancers. Although the total accumulative lifetime cancer risk for residents through water drinking and dermal exposure to typical carcinogenic organic contaminants was lower than the latest incidences of digestive system cancers and total cancers excluding lung cancer published by the Chinese government, their similar spatial patterns indicated that this exposure should be considered as one of potential factors for carcinogenic risks. Finally, further efforts to explore the correlation between human exposure to organic contaminants in water and related health effects on a long-term basis should be helpful for establishing and implementing feasible management strategies to reduce disease burdens.

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Activated carbon (AC) amendment is an effective strategy for remediating contaminated sediment by hydrophobic organic chemicals. Reductions of porewater chemical concentrations have been used for estimating recommended AC dose for effective sediment remediation, but the AC dose may have large uncertainties resulting from site-specific parameters. The present study examined sediment−water diffusion flux as an alternative assessment parameter by correlating diffusion fluxes of organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) with AC doses. AC at doses of 8−36% substantially reduced sediment porewater concentrations and diffusion fluxes of the target chemicals. Diffusion fluxes of OPFRs and PBDEs normalized by their corresponding sediment concentrations significantly correlated with total organic carbon contents (r 2 = 0.57−0.93). A model was established to estimate the required AC dose for effective sediment amendment from the diffusion flux and sediment concentration of a target chemical. Using contaminated sediment in a typical e-waste recycling zone, the AC doses (0.1 ± 1.3−12.8 ± 0.3%) required to reduce 90% of diffusion fluxes for tri-n-butyl phosphate and BDE-17 were within the recommended range (1.9 ± 3.6−5.6 ± 8.3%) in lowering porewater concentrations by the same magnitude. This finding suggested the feasibility of the new model in supporting sediment remediation.