Water is the same molecule in four states of trust: it is drunk; it is used and becomes sewage; it is treated and becomes irrigation water fit for landscape but never for lips. Every rule in water management is a barrier between those states — and every cross-connection, unmarked pipe or skipped disinfection is a breach waiting to reach a tap.
Why water systems are judged by their weakest joint
Utilities are inspected on point-of-use quality, chlorine residuals, tanker discipline and monthly reports — but incidents are born in the details: a repaired main returned to service undisinfected, a storage tank never dosed, an irrigation line without its markings. Systems survive on procedures, not luck.
What the AGS guideline covers
The AGS Hygiene & Sanitation Guidelines for Water are the international normalization of source regulation PHC-C-15, aligned with the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality — including the water safety plan framework — and the WHO guidelines for the safe use of wastewater. Its 34 sections and preserved quality tables cover:
- Potable water quality at the point of use — standards, chlorine residual and turbidity
- Step-by-step disinfection of new and repaired mains and storage tanks
- Transportation of potable water and chlorination on filling
- Wastewater collection, prohibited discharges and effluent monitoring
- Irrigation water criteria, application restrictions, signage and tanker marking
- Sludge reuse conditions, sampling, records and emergency response
The annexes carry the tables the whole code turns on: the source-preserved irrigation and potable water quality standards with their notes, a comparison with contemporary WHO guideline values, complete disinfection procedure references for mains and storage tanks, a six-part system inspection checklist and a jurisdictional adaptation register.
Who benefits
Utility and network operators get executable disinfection procedures; irrigation and reuse schemes get their quality tables and marking rules; inspectors get one code across all four waters.
Get the Guideline
Keep the four waters where they belong. Download the AGS Water guideline — instant download, fully editable Microsoft Word document, with the complete disinfection procedures and quality tables inside. Like every document in the AGS Technical Guidelines Library, it arrives as a clean, professionally structured file you can rebrand, adapt and issue as your establishment's own controlled document — no waiting, no shipping, no formatting work.
Product: Water — available as an instant-download, fully editable package from AGS (SKU AGS-05-013).