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Recreational water treatment biocides

  • 5 Fields of application
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  • First Online:
Directory of Microbicides for the Protection of Materials

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1 5.3.1 Introduction

“Recreational water” is a term used to refer to a variety of water types: swimming pools, spas (hot tubs are a subset of spas with a wooden shell), water amusement parks, ocean beaches, rivers, and lakes. Swimming pools and spas are the only recreational waters that are routinely treated with biocides. Water parks may or may not apply biocides in their water handling systems. From a biocide supplier view, and the definition used in this chapter, “recreational water” will refer exclusively to swimming pools and spas.

By far the largest number of swimming pools and spas in the world reside in the United States. The latest estimates show that there are 7.8 million pools and 7.7 million spas in the United States. Approximately 95% of the US pools and spas are residential. The average US residential pool is 17,000 gallons whereas the average residential spa is 300 gallons.

There is no international glossary of terms for recreational water. The terms disinfectant,...

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Notes

  1. 1.

    *

    see Part Two — Microbicide Data

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Authors
  1. M. J. Unhoch
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  2. R. D. Vore
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Wilfried Paulus

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© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Unhoch, M.J., Vore, R.D. (2004). Recreational water treatment biocides. In: Paulus, W. (eds) Directory of Microbicides for the Protection of Materials. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2818-0_9

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