Water treatment is an important barrier against pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water.
Since testing the produced water for the absence of indicators is insufficient to verify water
safety, Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment is now applied to better determine
drinking water safety. Data from twelve treatment systems was analyzed in this study to
develop methods to quantify pathogen reduction by a treatment system. Four approaches were
evaluated. Applying triangular distributions based on reported reduction in literature instead
of point estimates reduced uncertainty. Monitoring surrogates allowed a refinement of this
triangular distribution. Microbiological sampling provided the most accurate estimate of
nominal reduction, but could only be applied in the first stages of treatment. Modelling
processes based on process conditions was most appropriate for disinfection processes.
Simulations showed that the monitoring frequency can have a large impact on the outcome of
the assessment. Thus, the presented QMRA methods provided input for verification of
compliance to health based targets, risk identification, risk prioritization and designing
monitoring in the water safety plan. Includes 38 references, figures.