Gowen, AoifeAoifeGowenTsenkova, R.R.TsenkovaBruen, MichaelMichaelBruenO'Donnell, C. P. (Colm P.)C. P. (Colm P.)O'Donnell2013-04-052013-11-132012, Tayl2012-11-12Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technologyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10197/4225Maintaining a clean water supply is one of the key challenges facing humanity today. Pollution, over-use and climate change are just some of the factors putting increased pressure on our limited water resources. Contamination of the water supply presents a high risk to public health, security and the environment; however, no adequate real-time methods exist to detect the wide range of potential contaminants. There is a need for rapid, low cost, multi target systems for water quality monitoring. Information rich techniques such as vibrational spectroscopy have been proposed for this purpose. This review presents developments in the applications of vibrational spectroscopy to water quality monitoring over the past 20 years, identifies emerging technologies and discusses future challenges.enThis is an electronic version of an article published in Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, Volume 42, Issue 23, 2012. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology is available online at: www.tandfonline.com//doi/abs/10.1080/10643389.2011.592758WaterQualityVibrationalSpectroscopyMonitoringReal-timeContinuousInfra-redRaman spectroscopyJournal Article42232546257310.1080/10643389.2011.5927582013-01-25https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/