A survey of organic contaminants in drinking water, mineral water and natural water in Eastern and Central European countries

Monitoring of organic pollution is becoming more and more important, because the toxicity of many commonly used organic chemicals such as solvents, pesticides and their metabolites are similar to that of toxic heavy metals. In this study we analyzed the organic sum parameters, adsorbable organic halogen and total organic carbon, in drinking, mineral, river and lake waters collected from 20 countries in Europe from 117 locations. Analyses were done according to the standard methods. We found that the East European and Hungarian drinking waters contained more organic halogen and carbon than the West European ones. The mineral water wells in the North Slopes of the Caucasus Mountains in Russia are endangered, the water of some of the wells is not potable. The rivers and lakes of Europe are polluted with organic halogens mainly from multisources. To our knowledge this is the first survey of organic sum parameters in this part of Europe.