Turbidity 101: What It Is, And Why It Is So Important

Turbidity, a measure of the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid, was originally intended as a qualitative measure of the aesthetics of drinking water. It is not a measure of actual particles in the water; it measures how much those particles affect light being transmitted through the water, or how that light reflects off particles in the water. Today’s turbidity designs and methods have been regimented in an attempt to bring quantitative consistency to the measurement for both aesthetic and pathogenic qualities of drinking water.