CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The quality of drinking water is a powerful environmental determinant of human health, and biological and/or chemical pollution can, therefore, have profound repercussions on the latter. The present paper reviews the available literature on contaminated sources of surface and groundwater in different parts of Argentina, analyzes the origins of contamination and investigates the linkages between contaminated water and prevalent diseases in the affected areas. The analysis concentrates on the groundwater consumed by inhabitants of Greater Buenos Aires, the vast urban area surrounding the city of Buenos Aires; and the surface water of the Rio de la Plata that supplies drinking water to Greater Buenos Aires and nearby urban areas such as La Plata, Ensenada and Berisso. The paper also analyzes the problem of arsenic pollution in groundwater.