Abstract
Human civilization has always depended on a reliable supply of safe drinking water for survival, but even though two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water (mostly nonpotable seawater), such a commodity is not universally available. In the United States we have gone to great lengths to provide safe drinking water to the increasing percentage of our population residing in cities and towns. The twentieth century has seen major advances in municipal water treatment accompanied by dramatic decreases in waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever. Nonetheless, several incidents in the 1990s have made us realize that we cannot take these advances for granted.
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References
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Vesley, D. (1999). Potable Drinking Water. In: Human Health and the Environment. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5434-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5434-6_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-5099-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5434-6
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