South African Water Quality Guidelines, Volume 1: Domestic Water Use (1996) – criteria tables

This dataset was harvested from Volume 1 (Domestic Water Use) of the South African Water Quality Guidelines, second edition, published by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in 1996, using the corrected-symbols edition released by the Department of Water and Sanitation in 2017. The guidelines set out, for each water quality constituent, a Target Water Quality Range (TWQR) within which no adverse effects on human health or aesthetics were expected for domestic water use, together with the effects expected at increasing concentrations. The dataset contained 50 target ranges for 49 determinands, covering inorganic constituents (for example arsenic, cadmium, chloride, fluoride, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nitrate, sodium and sulphate), physical properties (pH, turbidity, total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity, odour and colour), organic constituents (dissolved organic carbon, atrazine, phenols and trihalomethanes), algae (chlorophyll a, blue-green algal cells and microcystins), microbiological indicators (heterotrophic plate count, total and faecal coliforms, coliphages, enteric viruses and protozoan parasites) and radioactivity (gross alpha and beta activity, uranium-238, thorium-232, radium-226, radium-228 and radon-222). All 212 concentration ranges from the 46 effects tables were captured with their units, numeric bounds and effect descriptions, along with each constituent's guideline status (full or tentative), precautionary notes and site-specific modifications. Narrative criteria for colour, corrosion, settleable matter and total hardness, and supporting tables (optimum fluoride by air temperature, phenol taste and odour thresholds, hardness classes, corrosion indices, radionuclide dose conversion factors and indicator organisms) were also included. Every table was checked visually against the page images, and symbols lost in the text layer (the litre symbol, inequality signs and powers of ten) were restored. Source inconsistencies, such as overlapping chlorophyll a ranges and a gap in the mercury ranges, were kept as printed and listed in a Cells_to_verify sheet.