Both soil and underground water of the southwestern Bangladesh has already been threatened with arsenic contamination affecting health of millions of people. An estimated 44% of total area of Bangladesh (34 districts) and 53 million rural people are at risk of arsenic poisoning. In the southwestern and some parts of eastern Bangladesh, arsenic content in soil and underground water has identified higher contamination. The experts at Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) found the highest contamination, 14mg/l of shallow tube well water in Pabna, a northern district and 220mg/kg of soil in Sylhet area of Bangladesh.1) The World Health Organization (WHO) standard for arsenic in drinking water is 0.01mg/l. However, the maximum permissible limit of arsenic in drinking water of Bangladesh is 0.05mg/l. Worsening contamination of groundwater aquifer and sufferings of the millions of people demand extensive research in this field. This study is a preliminary evaluation of our ongoing research on current state of the subsurface contamination of arsenic in Bangladesh. Last decade water resources management has been analyzed to cope with the problem in the source level. Possible geo-hydrological and geo-chemical occurrences of arsenic in subsurface are discussed. The concentration of arsenic and the stratigraphic occurrence are presented. It is observed that arsenic concentration in tubewell water of 31 districts of Bangladesh contain above the maximum permissible limit. And the concentration of arsenic in tubewell water decreases with the depth of subsurface.

Groundwater forms an indispensable portion of hydrological cycle. The availability of groundwater relies upon the recharge conditions and precipitation. Excessive use of groundwater, change in cropping pattern, production of good quality rice and discharge from industries has led to its exploitation which is one of the important environmental hazards and needs immediate attention. The regular check on the quality and level of groundwater should be done in order to ensure continuous supply. The present study was carried out in Ropar district of Punjab and it revealed that parameters of groundwater quality like nitrate exceeded the permissible limit at Ahmedpur, Bhallan and Dumewal region. The water quality index (WQI) was very poor at Ahmedpur and its surrounding areas. GIS technique was adopted to prepare the maps showing the spatial variation of groundwater quality parameters. Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) method of interpolation in Spatial Analysist tool in ArcMap software was used. For soil texture analysis Lithological 3D model was prepared using Rockworks15 software. In order to group the areas having similar extent of pollution Cluster analysis (CA) technique was implemented. From this study it has been concluded that fluorine content is less than the desired value at every sampling location and also immediate chlorination of water supply sources is required in order to avoid bacterial infection as chlorine level is also less than the desirable level.