AWWA WQTC52909

The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 stressed the importance of sourcewater assessment and protection programs as a means of safeguarding watersupplies. An important component of a source water protection program is an earlywarning system. Such a system is used to provide timely information on thequality of the source water so that knowledgeable decisions can be madeconcerning treatment and operation. This paper addresses issues associated withearly warning systems and summarizes the preliminary findings of the ongoing AWWAResearch Foundation sponsored project " Design of Early Warning and PredictiveSource-Water Monitoring System". Details are provided of several early warningsystems from around the world. Includes figure.