The rapid urbanization and industrial development have resulted in water contamination and water quality deterioration at an alarming rate, deeming its quick, inexpensive and accurate detection imperative. Conventional methods to measure water quality are lengthy, expensive and inefficient, including the manual analysis process carried out in a laboratory. The research work in this paper focuses on the problem from various perspectives, including the traditional methods of determining water quality to gain insight into the problem and the analysis of state-of-the-art technologies, including Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning techniques to address water quality. After analyzing the currently available solutions, this paper proposes an IoT-based low-cost system employing machine learning techniques to monitor water quality in real time, analyze water quality trends and detect anomalous events such as intentional contamination of water (Author abstract).