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Document ID ca-gcdwqgtd-2014-08-27-3 Title Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality: Guideline Technical Document - Nitrate and Nitrite URL https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/healthy-living/guidelines-canadian-drinking-water-quality-guideline-technical-document-nitrate-nitrite/page-4-guidelines-canadian-drinking-water-quality-guideline-technical-document-nitrate-nitrite.html Jurisdiction /ca Subdomain(s) Drinking water Language en Status completed Analyzed at 2026-03-18 15:32:11.011677+00:00 Relevance Technical guideline document defining health-based limits for nitrate/nitrite.

2 Qualitative 4 Quantitative 65 Definitions

Q Qualitative Requirements (2)

Req ID	Category	Intent	Legal Status	Name	Subdomain(s)	Context	Conditions	Confidence
#Q001	administrative	health	mandatory	Health Canada Science Monitoring - Nitrate	drinking water	As part of its ongoing guideline review process, Health Canada will continue to monitor new research in this area and recommend any change to the guideline that it deems necessary. Monitoring of science will focus particularly on thyroid effects, including neurodevelopmental effects, in the most sensitive subpopulation.	As part of the ongoing guideline review process	high
#Q002	administrative	health	mandatory	Health Canada Science Monitoring - Nitrite	drinking water	As part of its ongoing guideline review process, Health Canada will continue to monitor new research in this area and recommend any change to the guideline that it deems necessary.	As part of the ongoing guideline review process	high

P Quantitative Requirements (4)

Req ID	Category	Intent	Legal Status	Name	Subdomain(s)	Limit Type	Limit Value	Context	Conditions	Confidence
#P001	chemical	health	guideline	Nitrate	drinking water	MAC	45 mg/L	equivalent to 10 mg/L measured as nitrate-nitrogen	to be protective of the health of the most sensitive subpopulation, bottle-fed infants	high
#P002	chemical	health	guideline	Nitrate-nitrogen	drinking water	MAC	10 mg/L	measured as nitrate-nitrogen, equivalent to 45 mg/L nitrate	to be protective of the health of the most sensitive subpopulation, bottle-fed infants	high
#P003	chemical	health	guideline	Nitrite	drinking water	MAC	3 mg/L	equivalent to 1 mg/L as nitrogen	protective against endogenous and exogenous formation of nitrite-induced methaemoglobinemia in bottle-fed infants and the general population	high
#P004	chemical	health	guideline	Nitrite-nitrogen	drinking water	MAC	1 mg/L	measured as nitrogen, equivalent to 3 mg/L nitrite	protective against endogenous and exogenous formation of nitrite-induced methaemoglobinemia in bottle-fed infants and the general population	high

D Definitions (65)

Req ID	Name	Context	Confidence
#D001	NADH	reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide	high
#D002	T3	triiodothyronine	high
#D003	T4	thyroxine	high
#D004	TSH	thyroid stimulating hormone	high
#D005	HPT	hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid	high
#D006	OR	odds ratio	high
#D007	CI	confidence interval	high
#D008	NIS	sodium/iodide symporter	high
#D009	IDDM	insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes mellitus	high
#D010	RR	relative risk	high
#D011	BEN	Balkan endemic nephropathy	high
#D012	NOCs	N-nitroso compounds	high
#D013	LD50	median lethal dose	high
#D014	NPYR	N-nitrosopyrrolidine	high
#D015	DNA	deoxyribonucleic acid	high
#D016	RNA	ribonucleic acid	high
#D017	UDS	Unscheduled DNA synthesis	high
#D018	NAs	Nitrosating agents	high
#D019	NCs	nitrosatable compounds	high
#D020	NPRO	N-nitrosoproline	high
#D021	Clinical methaemoglobinaemia	Clinical methaemoglobinaemia is defined as greater than 2% methaemoglobin in blood.	high
#D022	HBV	health-based value	high
#D023	DDnitros	daily dose of a specific nitrosamine (mg/kg bw/day)	high
#D024	Kam	nitrosatability rate constant ((mol/L)-2·s-1), an indication of the relative ease of nitrosation of a specific amine	high
#D025	ER	excess cancer risk associated with exposure to a daily dose of a specific nitrosamine formed in the stomach after the ingestion of drinking water	high
#D026	CPFhuman	human cancer potency factor ((dose unit/day)-1). It is the excess cancer risk associated with exposure to 1 dose unit of a given nitrosamine per day	high
#D027	QRA	Quantitative Risk Assessment	high
#D028	MCL	maximum contaminant level	high
#D029	JECFA	Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives	high
#D030	NOEL	no-observed-effect level	high
#D031	TMA	trimethylamine	high
#D032	TMAO	trimethylamine-N-oxide	high
#D033	ETU	Ethylenethiourea	high
#D034	AAF	2-Acetyl aminofluorene	high
#D035	NDEA	N-nitrosodiethylamine	high
#D036	DMA	dimethylamine	high
#D037	TD05	the dose level that causes a 5% increase in tumour incidence over background	high
#D038	Vs	stomach volume (L)	high
#D039	[NO2-]	gastric nitrite concentration (mol/L)	high
#D040	[NO3-]	nitrate concentration (mol/L)	high
#D041	TR	transformation rate of nitrate into nitrite	high
#D042	WC	daily water consumption (L)	high
#D043	DIam	total daily intake of amine (mol/day)	high
#D044	MWnitros	molecular weight of the specific nitrosamine (mg/mol)	high
#D045	bw	average body weight of an adult, estimated as 70 kg	high
#D046	MAC	maximum acceptable concentration	high
#D047	NDMA	N-nitrosodimethylamine	high
#D048	HNO2	nitrous acid	high
#D049	N2O3	nitrous anhydride	high
#D050	H2NO2+	nitrous acidium ion (protonated nitrous acid)	high
#D051	SCN	thiocyanates	high
#D052	[am]f	amine concentration in a specific food item (mg/kg)	high
#D053	IRf	estimated ingestion rate of specific food item (kg/day)	high
#D054	MWam	molecular weight of the amine (mg/mol)	high
#D055	qhuman	scaled human cancer potency	high
#D056	q1*	upper 95% confidence bound on the linear coefficient q1	high
#D057	IRIS	Integrated Risk Information System	high
#D058	NHL	Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma	high
#D059	NTP	National Toxicology Program	high
#D060	ORadj	odds ratios adjusted	high
#D061	N-nitrosation	The reaction where nitrosating agents (NAs; NxOy form) react under certain conditions with nitrosatable compounds (NCs) to form N-nitrosamines and N-nitrosamides (collectively called N-nitroso compounds, NOCs)	high
#D062	Organiﬁcation	a complex, enzyme-dependent process whereby iodide is oxidized and bound to tyrosyl residues within thyroglobulin, ultimately forming the thyroid hormones T3 and T4	high
#D063	CDC	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	high
#D064	WHO	World Health Organization	high
#D065	FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations	high