Water Sanitation and Health
Our vision and mission are the attainment by all peoples of the lowest possible burden of water and sanitation-related disease through primary prevention.

Arsenic

Arsenic is considered in the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality (GDWQ).

For individual chemicals, the GDWQ also consider:

Previous editions of the background document

Chemical hazards in drinking water

Other publications of interest

Chemical safety of drinking-water: Assessing priorities for risk management

This book provides guidance on the chemical safety of drinking-water. Chemical contaminants of drinking-water are often considered a lower priority than...

Protecting groundwater for health cover

Protecting groundwater for health provides a structured approach to analysing hazards to groundwater quality, assessing the risk they may cause for a specific...

Contamination of drinking-water by arsenic in Bangladesh: a public health emergency

The contamination of groundwater by arsenic in Bangladesh is the largest poisoning of a population in history, with millions of people exposed. This paper...

Towards an assessment of the socioeconomic impact of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh

In 1993, in Bangladesh, drinking-water samples from tubewells were found to contain high levels of arsenic. The primary purpose of this paper is to...

Related resources

Cover of the publication arsenic primer
15 January 2018

Arsenic primer

Guidance on the investigation and mitigation of arsenic contamination