What precautions should be taken to avoid cross-contamination during sampling?

To avoid cross-contamination during sampling, it is essential to change gloves between samples. This practice prevents the transfer of contaminants from one sample to another, ensuring that each sample accurately represents the water source being tested. Cross-contamination can significantly compromise the integrity of the sample and lead to erroneous results, which is critical to avoid in water quality assessments.

Using gloves is vital because hands can carry bacteria, chemicals, or other contaminants that can alter the sample's true quality. By changing gloves between each sample collection, the risk of introducing these undesired elements is minimized, maintaining the reliability of the sampling process.

In contrast, utilizing any available container might lead to contamination from residues or cleaning agents in the containers, while collecting samples at different times could introduce variations in water quality due to changes in environmental conditions or source influences. Keeping samples at room temperature can also affect certain analyses by allowing biological activity to occur, which could otherwise be suppressed if samples were preserved at the proper temperature immediately after collection. Thus, changing gloves serves as a direct and effective method to uphold sample integrity.