Workshop on early warning systems : ERNCIP thematic area Chemical & Biological Risks in the Water Sector Task 5, deliverable 1

ERNCIP's thematic area 'Chemical and biological risks in the water sector' deals with the security of drinking water supply. One priority of the thematic area group is early warning systems (EWS), which aims at protecting against the intake of drinking water from treatment plants and drinking water networks affected by malicious or harmful events. Ideally, these systems trigger an alarm as soon as the quality of the source water or the drinking water differs from normality and, hence, allow the operator to supervise it and react properly, if necessary. A second priority deals with the analytical identification of 'unknown' chemical and/or biological contaminations in drinking water following an incident. This rather analytical topic deals with screening methods used for the purpose of identifying and quantifying the individual contaminants rapidly as a basis for risk/crisis/mitigation management. Corresponding state-of-the-art reports were also elaborated.