Introduction. The task of express measurement of water pollution is a pressing issue of the 20th century. Development of methods and, based on them, technologies and devices that are easy to use and affordable will allow determining the concentration of toxic substances in water in order to assess its quality. The use of fast systems for determining the ecological state of water bodies will help reduce the risk of consuming contaminated water.
The purpose of the research is to analyze approaches to express measurement of the concentration of toxic substances in water to develop approaches to building an information technology for rapid assessment of water quality.
Results. An analysis of approaches to express measurement of the concentration of toxic substances in water was conducted. A review of methods for determining the concentration of toxic substances in water was conducted. The development of electrochemical methods of analysis and the use of various sensors for determining the concentrations of individual elements were studied, approaches to the development of practical automated systems for electrochemical studies and the features of the use of information technologies for processing analytical signals were considered.
Conclusions. The conducted analysis showed that it is advisable to measure the concentrations of toxic elements lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, phosphorus in water using pulse methods of inversion chronopotentiometry and sensors made of noble metals.
Keywords: information technology, hardware and software complex, methods of analysis, water pollution, express measurement, heavy metals, concentration of toxic substances/ assessment of quality, modeling, identification, monitoring, automated system.