Arsenic and other drinking water quality issues, Muzaffargarh District, Pakistan

Contamination of groundwater by arsenic: a review of occurrence, causes, impacts, remedies and membrane-based purification

“…Reduction of oxyhydroxides (FeOOH) in alluvial aquifers needs organic matter (OM), the source of which may be anthropogenic (unsewered sanitation, surface soils) or authigenic. Though OM drives reduction, the surface source of such OM is almost ruled out (Sengupta et al 2008) contrary to the observations of Nickson et al (2005) in the case of arsenic-pollution of groundwater in Pakistan's Muzzafargarh. In the Bengal delta basin, organic-rich fluvio-deltaic sediments that were deposited during the high-stand setting of the mid Holocene age (Acharyya 2002) are found to be associated with a major arsenic contamination problem.…”

“…It is suggested by many researchers (Ormland et al 2002;Islam et al 2004) that rapid burial of OM along with sediments facilitates microbial activities which generate reducing conditions favourable to the formation of sulphide minerals containing arsenic. Nickson et al (2005) in their investigation on the causes of shallow groundwater (530 m deep) contamination in Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan blamed sewage, animal and human wastes (anthropogenic OM) for the reduction of hydrous ferric oxide and the release of sorbed arsenic into groundwater, though the surface source of OM in driving such reduction processes has been considered as extremely unlikely (Sengupta et al 2008). However, reducing conditions in deep (430 m) aquifers seem to be due to naturally occurring OM.…”

“…Arsenic contamination of groundwater has now resulted in world-wide human health problems affecting millions of people across a large number of countries like Argentina (Smedley and Edmund 2002;Heredia and Cirelli 2009;Morgada et al 2009), Bangladesh (Islam et al 2004;Zhenga et al 2004;Hafeman et al 2005;Harvey et al 2006; Klump et al 2006;Sengupta et al 2008;Chen et al 2009), India (Pal et al 2007b;Sengupta et al 2008;Bhattacharjee et al 2005;Smith et al 2000;Chakraborti et al 2003), Nepal (Panthi et al 2006;Pokhrel et al 2009), Pakistan (Nickson et al 2005), Thailand (World Bank Technical Report 2004), China (Ding et al 2001;Xia et al 2007), USA (Schreiber et al 2000;Wickramasinghe et al 2004), Vietnam (Berg et al 2001;Tong 2002), Mexico (Romero-Schmidt et al 2001), Mongolia (Smedley et al 2003), and Taiwan (Tseng 2003;Hsieh et al 2008). In some places in Bangladesh, the concentration of arsenic in groundwater is as high as 1000 mg/l (Harvey et al 2002).…”

N-acetyl-L-cysteine reduces arsenite-induced cytotoxicity through chelation in U937 monocytes and macrophages

“…In Pakistan, for example, there are still a number of regions in which the arsenic concentrations of drinking water exceed the World Health Organization standard of 10 ppb (µg/l), and arsenic levels in the large water reservoirs have been demonstrated to be as high as 600-700 µg/l (2)(3)(4)(5). The majority of arsenic compounds in drinking water are inorganic arsenite or arsenate (6).…”

“…Arsenic is recognized as a serious threat to public health in numerous Asian countries (1)(2)(3)(4). In Pakistan, for example, there are still a number of regions in which the arsenic concentrations of drinking water exceed the World Health Organization standard of 10 ppb (µg/l), and arsenic levels in the large water reservoirs have been demonstrated to be as high as 600-700 µg/l (2)(3)(4)(5).…”