Use of measurement uncertainty in a probabilistic scheme to assess compliance of bottled water with drinking water standards

Ground water bodies are important resources for drinking water, including bottled water, and national regulatory bodies should assess their quality continuously. For this purpose, an effective assessment system of bottled water at source should be installed. A hierarchical nested balance design for the collection of random primary duplicate water samples, and their replicate analyses, is described, and the use of robust analysis of variance to estimate measurement uncertainty. The latter is subsequently used for the development of four probabilistic categories for the classification of element concentrations in bottled water with respect to legislative standard values, i.e., (a) compliant (below Lower Threshold Limit), (b) possibly non-compliant (possibly above Standard Value), (c) probably non-compliant (probably above Standard Value), and (d) non-compliant (above Upper Threshold Limit), for the reliable assessment of compliance to European Union and national drinking water standards. Overall, the quality of European bottled water is considered good, with the exception of a few that have concentrations in Mn, B, Ba, As, Fe, Ni, Se, and Al, which are definitely above the estimated respective Upper Threshold Limit and, thus, exceed the corresponding legislative standard value defined by European Union directives. National regulatory bodies should verify these results, and install an efficient assessment system of compliance to regulatory limits using the methodology described in this paper.