Reference activities of the Nancy Laboratory for Hydrology

Reference laboratory for drinking water, natural mineral water and recreational water

The biological and chemical contaminants covered by the reference activities of the Nancy Laboratory for Hydrology include all regulated parameters and emerging non-regulated parameters. In this context, the laboratory has the following missions:

• providing scientific and technical support to the French Directorate General for Health and its decentralised departments in the event of a health crisis;
• acquiring knowledge on the prevalence of emerging substances in the water resources used to produce drinking water as well as in tap water, bottled water and recreational water. These data are acquired as part of national prevalence campaigns;
• running two national networks of specialist laboratories: the network of approved laboratories for water quality monitoring and the network of Biotox laboratories (national biological threat response network). Among other things, this mission involves the organisation of technical sessions, technical conferences and inter-laboratory tests;
• conducting confirmation analyses and dispelling doubts concerning the results of approved laboratories for water quality monitoring;
• helping produce guidelines and health standards related to water and revise regulatory texts, and contributing to work on standards in the area of drinking water;
• participating in European expert groups;
• processing requests to import bottled natural mineral water.

View the analysis framework for water quality monitoring (in French)

View the method for analysing haloacetic acids in water (in French)

View the method for analysing hexavalent chromium in water (in French)

Reference laboratory for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and sewage sludge

In 2021, the Laboratory for Hydrology was given new responsibilities as the reference laboratory for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) in wastewater and sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants. This monitoring serves to indirectly track the spread of the virus and its variants in the population. This NRL’s missions are to: 

• harmonise the methods used for monitoring the virus, from sampling through to data analysis and standardisation;
• qssist the laboratories responsible for the analyses and assess their ability to implement the detection systems through inter-laboratory proficiency tests;
• contribute to developing the surveillance plans drawn up by Santé publique France. 

This national monitoring of the virus will be supported by the SUM'EAU network (microbiological surveillance of wastewater), which involves the Directorate General for Health, the Directorate for Water and Biodiversity, Santé publique France and ANSES.