Chapter 7 – Natural Water

Several recent works based on the use of UV-visible spectrophotometry for natural water quality monitoring were published in the recent years. Not only rivers, lakes, marshes, wetlands, but also groundwater and seawater are chosen as experimental sites in numerous studies since the first UV application for water examination 60 years ago. The study of discharges (wastewater or accidental in freshwaters) is also facilitated by this technique. Recently, some specific researches were carried out such as (i) the impact of climate change with the increase of heavy rains and storms in temperate countries and its effects on freshwater quality, (ii) the interest of high-frequency monitoring for a better understanding of nutrient dynamics, for example, and (iii) the contribution of the second derivative absorbance in the 270–330 nm for a better characterisation of DOM and DOC estimation.