Download the PDF version of the current
Australian Drinking Water Guidelines and Water Made Clear

Download the User Manual for the Community Water Planner: A tool for small communities to develop drinking water management plans, and order the software CD

Status of the Rolling Revision
     (last updated August 2007)


The latest edition of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines was released in December 2004. This edition was restructured to incorporate the Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality - a preventive risk management approach for water supplies that has been jointly developed by the CRC for Water Quality and Treatment and the NHRMC. An updated version of the ADWG was released in late 2006 with the addition of Chapter 8: Drinking Water Treatment Chemicals and 34 associated Fact Sheets.

NHMRC also released a companion document entitled Water Made Clear which provides information on drinking water quality and safety for consumers. Both documents are available free from the NHMRC website. Print copies of the ADWG 2004 edition can be purchased from the AWA Bookshop. (www.awa.asn.au/bookshop/).

To aid in the implementation of the guidelines, the NHMRC has developed a computer software program to assist local drinking water managers to develop management plans tailored specifically to their community. The Community Water Planner was released in March 2006. This tool is specifically aimed at small community water supplies and is also available from the NHMRC.

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines define good quality drinking water from the perspectives of both health and aesthetics. They are intended as the primary reference on drinking water quality in Australia, and as a basis for negotiating the quality of drinking water supplies throughout the country. These Guidelines are not mandatory standards but represent a framework for identifying acceptable water quality through community consultation.

The Guidelines are developed by the National Health and Medical Research Council in collaboration with the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council. The Guidelines do not cover bottled or packaged water - these are regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (under Standard 2.6.2 Non-Alcoholic Beverages and Brewed Soft Drinks).

Following the publication of the previous major edition of the ADWG in 1996, the NHMRC instituted a Rolling Revision process for future updates to the document. This process was recommended when the 1996 Guidelines were produced, so that sections could be updated at variable intervals as warranted by information from new research. This contrasts with previous practice where the Guidelines remained fixed for several years, then underwent a major review. The most recent round of Rolling Revisions commenced in early 2007.