Arsenic at low concentrations in Dutch drinking water: Assessment of removal costs and health benefits

Drinking Water Criteria for Arsenic in High-Income, Low-Dose Countries: The Effect of Legislation on Public Health

“…In lack of evidence to the contrary, one could follow environmental custom by invoking the precautionary principle and assume a linear dose–response curve with no lower threshold value . Using the linear dose–effect model and the accepted level of risk of one per million due to the consumption of drinking water as mentioned in section , the maximum level of As should be 0.004 μg/L . Under these assumptions, any reduction in As concentrations will lead to a smaller risk.…”

“…Several approaches for estimating the potential health benefits of lowering As exposure are possible, such as a three-step approach described by van der Wens et al In the Danish case described here, an estimation of potential health benefits could be composed of determining exposure patterns in the population before and after As concentrations are lowered, converting exposure to annual incidence: i.e., the risk of becoming ill with a selected end point during a given year. However, several links in this chain are weak due to limitations of the data set.…”

“…Some countries, however, have a criterion below 10 μg As/L, referring to the precautionary principle. Examples include Denmark since 2003 and New Jersey, USA, since 2006, which have a criterion of 5 μg/L, and the water sector in The Netherlands since 2016, which pledged a voluntary limit of 1 μg/L on the basis of a societal cost–benefit analysis. , Other countries retain a criterion of 50 μg/L (if lower As source waters are not available) to discourage replacing noncompliant well water with contaminated surface water, which may present far greater health risks due to the presence of pathogens …”

Environmental arsenic in a changing world

“…Figure 1 shows the linearly modelled dose-response relationship which is based on the epidemiological study in Chile and the conclusions of the National Research Council (NRC, 2001) on the increased risk of lung cancer by 41% due to lifelong exposure to 50 µg L −1 As. The relationship led to a calculated health benefit of 10.7 M€ per year using the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) method of the National Health Council (NHC, 2007) which is more than twice the calculated annual costs for As removal when the target is set on 1 µg L −1 (Van der Wens et al, 2016).…”

“…The WHO guideline is provisional and therefore every effort should be made to keep the As concentrations as low as reasonably possible in drinking water (WHO, 2006. In The Netherlands a cost benefit analysis was carried out which revealed that it is advantageous to remove As to <1 µg L −1 (Van der Wens et al, 2016). Brabant Water, the water supply company in the North Brabant Province of The Netherlands integrated the findings in its water safety planning.…”