Dr David Cunliffe is the principal water quality specialist with the South Australian Department for Health. He is a regulator with over 35 years of experience dealing with public health aspects of drinking water, recycled water and recreational water including investigation of water-borne disease outbreaks. He led the development and implementation of the South Australian Safe Drinking Water Act.

David has been a member of WHO Water Quality Committees since 2001, is Chair of the WHO Drinking-Water Guideline Development Group and past chair and current member of the Australian National Water Quality Advisory Committee. He has contributed to a range of national and international guidelines on drinking water quality, safe use of recycled water including potable reuse and recreational water.

David was a lead author of the WHO text on Developing Drinking-water Quality Regulations and Standards, the lead editor for WHO texts on potable reuse, water safety in distribution systems and water safety in buildings and contributed to other specialist texts on Legionella and pharmaceuticals in drinking water. He contributes to research on public health aspects of water quality and has published on drinking water quality, desalination, rainwater quality and waterborne disease.
He is a member of expert water quality panels in Singapore and Hong Kong.