Drinking water consumption patterns in Sweden

• Estimates on drinking water consumption are necessary in risk assessments on microbial hazardsin drinking water. Large differences in consumption habits between countries have beenreported. In order to establish estimates for the Swedish population, water consumption datafrom a waterborne outbreak investigation (157 people), a small water consumption study(75 people) and a large study on health and environmental factors (10,957 people) were analysed.A lognormal distribution for the daily direct/cold water intake in litres with m¼20.299 ands ¼ 0.570 was fitted to the quantitative data, representing the general population. The averagedaily consumption of tap water as plain drinking water and as heated tap water, e.g. in coffeeand tea, was 0.86 ^ 0.48 l and 0.94 ^ 0.69 l, respectively. Women consumed more cold tap waterthan did men, while men appeared to have a higher consumption of heated tap water. Cold tapwater intake was highest in the oldest age group, ($70 years). The consumption of bottled waterwas very low (mean 0.06 l/d) when compared to other countries.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

Keyword

demographic variables

drinking water consumption

probability distribution

risk assessment

tap water

water intake

Water in nature and society

Vatten i natur och samhälle

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)