The RCPEH is a department in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey.
It was created on August 1, 1997, from the Environmental Health
Division of the former Robens Institute, which had been in existence
since 1985. The aim of the RCPEH is to increase our
understanding of the complex ways in which water exerts impacts on
human health. We achieve this aim through research, training, and
the provision of services.
RCPEH has a number of specialisms including Laboratory Development
and Laboratory Management, Training, Analytical Expertise, Development
of Monitoring Programmes and Monitoring for Management, Groundwater
Quality Monitoring and Recreational Water Quality Monitoring.
In addition to work within its own laboratories and those of associated
institutions, RCPEH staff are also engaged in laboratory design and
development elsewhere. Centre staff have undertaken, for example, an
extensive, three country review, on behalf of the World Health
Organisation, of the Drinking Water Quality Monitoring sector in the
middle east (Yemen, Pakistan and Egypt); a review of the water quality
monitoring and analytical facilities in Qatar, Syria and Jordan; and
have provided training and technical support including training,
laboratory management and institutional development for the National
Water Quality Analysis Laboratory of the Government of Zimbabwe.
The RCPEH is very active in the provision of education and training in
the fields of environmental quality and environmental health and is
particularly concerned with the provision of in-country training in
developing countries.
The RCPEH has access to a wide range of dedicated environmental science
laboratories, including three chemical pollution instrumentation
laboratories, three environmental microbiology laboratories, an
asbestos monitoring suite, an environmental physiology laboratory and
an electron microscope unit.
Development of Monitoring Programmes and Monitoring for Management
The RCPEH is recognized as a centre of excellence in the field of
environmental monitoring with special reference to drinking water
monitoring and monitoring of water in the natural environment.
A major research theme of the hydrogeology group is the impact of
cities on the quality of the underlying groundwater. Using an extensive
sampling and analysis programme, the project has created one of the
largest and most comprehensive groundwater quality data sets in Europe.
Work undertaken at the University of Bradford, in collaboration with
the RCPEH has had a significant level of practical output, including a
proposed, novel fingerprint method, using a combination of
microbiological and chemical parameters, to identify sewage
contamination. The urban groundwater quality monitoring work is
continuing in the UK with an additional emphasis upon the transport and
attenuation of human pathogens, in particular viruses.
The RCPEH has been responsible for numerous initiatives in the areas of
recreational water and beach quality monitoring in the UK, and
overseas, for WHO and the British Council. Staff at the RCPEH were
involved in the inception and design of the UK, DoE study into the
Health Effects of Sea Bathing, co-ordinated by the Water Research
Centre.
