Dr. Frank Brauer (Chairman)
Advisory Board of the Water Standards Committee
DIN NA 119-09 FB
Division of Water Testing (CEN/TC 230, ISO/TC 147)

Standardisation coordinator of the Society of Water Chemistry

Testing, standardisation and further development of analytical methods

Since its foundation in 1926, one of the aims of the Society of Water Chemistry has been to standardise the analytical methods used to assess water quality. In 1928, a committee was set up specifically for this purpose, which today operates under the name "Main Committee I: Analytical Methods - Development and Standardisation". Since then, members of the Society of Water Chemistry have played a central role with their expertise in the standardisation of analytical methods in the field of water and sludge testing. They contribute to the availability of citable procedural regulations in the form of standards for legislation.

In 1935, the "Physikalische und Chemische Einheitsverfahren" (Physical and Chemical Standardised Procedures) were published for the first time by Verlag Chemie, which were published in 1953 under the title "Deutsche Einheitsverfahren zur Wasseruntersuchung" (German Standardised Procedures for Water Analysis) in a revised and expanded edition. In 1960, the "German Standardised Procedures for Water, Wastewater and Sludge Testing" was published as a loose-leaf collection so that the individual regulations could be replaced by new editions as required.

Since 1976, there has been an agreement between the Division and the DIN German Institute for Standardisation, according to which the standardised procedures are converted into DIN standards over time and new standardised procedures are developed by the Society of Water Chemistry in cooperation with the Water Standards Committee. All DIN standards based on the standardised methods are also published as part of this collection. In Technical Committee 147 "Water Quality" of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), international standards on water quality are developed under German leadership, which in some cases are transferred to the German body of standards in the form of DIN-ISO standards; they are then also published in this collection. In the Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN), European standards (EN) on water analysis are developed in Technical Committee 230 under German leadership. European standards must be adopted unchanged into the national body of standards and then replace conflicting DIN standards. European standards for water analysis are generally also included in this loose-leaf collection. ISO standards that are adopted at European level or developed in parallel are published as DIN-EN-ISO standards.

By 2025 around 380 measurement and test methods could be standardised in one of the above-mentioned ways.

More information on standardisation work & DEV