CSE's Pollution Monitoring Laboratory receives a number of requests to test the water quality of river, groundwater and municipal water sources. The Laboratory's water module will analyse surface water, groundwater and drinking water for quality and contamination.

Today, almost all water bodies in India are severely stressed by overuse and by industrial, urban and agricultural pollution. A 1996 Indo-Dutch study acknowledged the fact that the water intake point at Haiderpur, one of Delhi's water treatment plants, had to be closed on average five times a year in order to let a polluted 'band' of water cross the treatment plant.

A 1994 World Bank study estimated that some 30.5 million 'Disability Adjusted Life Years' are lost each year in India due to poor water quality, sanitation and hygiene. Polluted water leads to various gastrointestinal problems, liver infections, tropical diseases and increasingly newer diseases, such as cancer, because of toxic pollution. Children are often the worst affected.