Over the past few years, maintaining surface and groundwater quality has become major worldwide concern due to the presence of emerging contaminants (ECs), which include synthetic or naturally occurring chemicals such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), pesticides, surfactants, and industrial pollutants or any microorganisms that are not commonly monitored in the environment. Commonly present in exceptionally lower concentrations, generally in parts per billion and trillion, most of these contaminants and their by-products have not yet been studied and can often evade conventional water treatment systems, leading to significant environmental and health threats to living organisms. Based on long-term monitoring data and regional comparisons, this chapter explores the origins, routes, and effects of ECs on water quality and, in relation to that, showcases the occurrence of chronic pharmaceutical pollutions in the Ganges River Basin, 16,216 ng/L of antibiotics found in the surface water of the United States, and ibuprofen analgesics in river of India reaching concentrations of 2.32 µg/L. Conversely, it reports detectable levels of triclosan and microplastics to co-exist in PPCPs almost across the world. The chapter also describes how recent technological advances, and in particular the advent of treatment technologies such as TiO2-doped PVDF ultrafiltration membranes, eliminated upto 96% of steroidal estrogens, whereas biochar-based adsorbents obtained high adsorption capacities, ultimately eliminating ECs from water sources. In the context of other relevant literature, the findings provide important insights into the need for improved legislation, advanced detection, and remediation methods, as well as raising awareness among the public alongside influencing future studies to focus on the long-term consequences of ecosystems and well-being from EC exposure. Ultimately, adaptation of number of fast-evolving techniques that keep expanding sustainable water treatment may quantitatively diminish the level of these unseen threats in terms of attenuating their negative impact on compromising the quality of surface water and groundwater.