RESEARCH ARTICLE Perception of household in regards to water pollution: an empirical evidence from Pakistan Adeel Ahmed 1 & Imran Shafique 2 Received: 18 September 2018 /Accepted: 16 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Water pollution is one of the main threats to public health in Pakistan. The watchdogs for drinking water quality are toothless, hence Pakistan’ s ranking in maintaining water quality standards is 80th out of 122 nations. Despite such alarming situation coupled with violation of various drinking water quality parameters set by WHO, the risk perception of people remains an unfolded area of research. This paper examines the risk perception of household regarding water pollution in Pakistan and its potential effect on human health. In this way, we present a more analytical interpretation of the subject by collecting data from a survey questionnaire from one of the largest urban cities of Pakistan. Conclusions are drawn which stress that education, income, and knowledge of water pollution have higher impact on risk perception. From this position, and with the development of implications for policy, we demonstrate the need of a systematic quantification of various uncertainties that can provide more realistic support for remediation-related decisions to policy makers. Keywords Public health . Risk perception . Human health . Water pollution . Water quality Introduction Access to safe drinking water is among the major challenges that humanity is facing in the twenty first century. Water, on one hand, is regarded as the most essential of natural resources that is indispensable for human life, while on the other hand, human activities pose serious threats to fresh water systems in the world (Ebenstein 2012). The contamination of drinking water by different anthropogenic sources is now a global con- cern (Mallin et al. 2000; Rapant and Krčmová 2007; Rashid and Romshoo 2013). The excessive use of water for the eco- nomic activities like urbanization and industrialization maxi- mizes human access to water but often impedes access to drinking water, with potentially serious but unquantified costs (Britto et al. 2018). The concerns of drinking water quality for third world countries are exacerbated because of rapid and unplanned urbanization. Cities have expanded rapidly be- cause they are considered an engine for rapid economic growth. The unorganized expansion of major cities exerts enormous pressure on ground water. This results in unsanitary environments, which threatens the health of urban residents (Rahaman et al. 2018). Although the problem of water quality has many dimensions, water scarcity, pollution caused by the consumption pattern and lack of efficient waste water treat- ment system are considered the main causes. According to United Nations recommendations, subsequent two decades will bring serious water quality and quantity challenges (Villholth 2006), countries in South Asia particularly, Pakistan stands on the top of the list of critical water shortage and pollution (Azizullah et al. 2011; Jabeen et al. 2015). In addition, various reports on national level agreed on the fact that the water quality of cities in particular will exacerbate and have serious repercussion for urban health. The negative impacts of polluted water on health are wide- ly acknowledged nowadays (Ashraf et al. 2010; Carmichael 2013; Dwight et al. 2004; Khan et al. 2013; Machdar et al. 2013). However, these effects can be recognized instanta- neously while some take time to appear. The drinking water quality is deteriorated due to viruses, bacteria etc. These bac- teria spread through fecal oral route (Akpor and Muchie 2011; Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Adeel Ahmed adeelawan261@gmail.com 1 NUST Business School, National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan 2 Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Islamabad, Pakistan Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04273-4