: : LEARN ABOUT WATER / CAUSES : :

Water is well known for its universal solvent characteristics whereby it can easily dissolve any substance it touches. Consequently what comes into contact with it can also easily contaminate it.

In the Earth's water cycles, water evaporates from rivers, lakes and seas and is reprecipitated as rain or snow. Some falling on land, returns to these rivers, lakes and seas. Some percolates through soil and substrata and is retained in aquifers and underground reservoirs. Whether we take our fresh water from rivers or lakes (surface water) or underground reservoirs (ground water), the pure rain and snow will have picked up other pollutants and materials as it passes over atmosphere and through the ground. Some of these pollutants and materials are beneficial: for example calcium dissolved by the water as it passes through chalk is an important mineral to human and animal bone structure. However, others, bacteria from animal decay for example, can cause sickness or even death.

There have been rising incidences of complaints regarding aesthetic nature of water problems and impurities such as the taste, odour, colour and turbidity from our taps. After the treated water leaves the water treatment plant but before it reaches a premise, it will come into contact with many different substances along the extensive but ageing distribution pipe network, such as gases, mineral, organic and inorganic matters, micro-organisms and chemical compounds. Traces of all these substances and particles contaminated the water, causing aesthetic water problems such as taste, odour, colour and turbidity, and health water problems such as contaminations of chemical compounds and micro-organisms.