WHO said what? Non-robust standards in citing WHO and EPA drinking water guidelines

Abstract

Recent publications in reputable journals have frequently contained incorrect citations of World Health Organisation (WHO) and U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines and regulations, respectively. We report their occurrence specifically in the sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting space. These works describe interesting systems designed to absorb and harvest water from air, and therein frequently reference the WHO and EPA regarding (primarily) lithium, potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium concentrations to indicate the purity and safety of the resulting harvested water. These reported guideline values vary wildly and rarely feature a cited source for the values given. The WHO and EPA have never provided primary guidelines or standards for any of these ions. Of particular interest is lithium, which currently has no associated guideline but will be an increasingly common environmental pollutant (with the exponential increase in Li battery usage) and has recently been added to the EPA “anticipated to occur in public water systems” list. We are of the opinion that these citation practices are symptomatic of deeper issues in scientific publishing which will not self-correct, requiring deeper scrutiny from authors, peer reviewers and editorial staff.