Unpleasant odor in drinking water is a worldwide substantial issue for consumers and water utilities. However, its hidden social impact has been ignored as there are no apparent direct health effects compared with other pollutants. In this study, we developed a method to characterize the adverse effects of a typical odorant based on behavioral responses with the corresponding economic burden, illustrated by 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB). The dose-response based on behavioral responses to odors using a questionnaire was established in consideration of the bandwagon effect. Results showed that about half of consumers adopted averting behaviors after detecting even very weak odor (but generally recognizable) in drinking water. Total economic burden was determined to be 290690 ± 27427 ¥ per million people per day by the surcharges arising from consumer averting behavior or additional treatment of drinking water odor, among which about 13% of surcharge originated from insensitive people because of bandwagon effect. This is the first study to quantify odor hidden risk based on people's behavioral responses using economic burden, which provides a useful tool to comparing the risks of different types of pollutants in drinking water.

饮用水中难闻的气味对于消费者和自来水公司而言是一个全球性的重大问题。但是，由于其与其他污染物相比没有明显的直接健康影响，因此其潜在的社会影响已被忽略。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种基于行为响应和相应的经济负担来表征典型气味剂的不利影响的方法，例如2-甲基异冰片醇（2-MIB）。考虑到潮流效应，建立了基于使用问卷对气味的行为反应的剂量反应。结果表明，大约一半的消费者在检测到甚至很弱的气味（但通常可以识别）后都采取了回避行为。通过避免消费者的行为或对饮用水气味的额外处理所产生的附加费，总经济负担被确定为每百万人每天290690±27427¥，其中约13％的附加费来自于由于潮流效应而变得不敏感的人。这是第一项基于经济负担根据人们的行为反应来量化气味隐藏风险的研究，这为比较饮用水中不同类型污染物的风险提供了有用的工具。