Assessment of ground water quality for drinking purpose, District Nainital, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

The ground water quality of District Nainital (Uttarakhand, India) has been assessed to see the suitability of ground water for drinking and irrigation applications. This is a two-part series paper and this paper examines the suitability of ground water including spring water for drinking purposes. Forty ground water samples (including 28 spring samples) were collected during pre- and post-monsoon seasons and analyzed for various water quality constituents. The hydrochemical and bacteriological data was analyzed with reference to BIS and WHO standards and their hydrochemical facies were determined. The concentration of total dissolved solids exceeds the desirable limit of 500 mg/L in about 10% of the samples, alkalinity values exceed the desirable limit of 200 mg/L in about 30% of the samples, and total hardness values exceed the desirable limit of 300 mg/L in 15% of the samples. However, no sample crosses the maximum permissible limit for TDS, alkalinity, hardness, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, nitrate, and fluoride. The concentration of chloride, sulfate, nitrate, and fluoride are well within the desirable limit at all the locations. The bacteriological analysis of the samples does not show any sign of bacterial contamination in hand pump and tube-well water samples. However, in the case of spring water samples, six samples exceed the permissible limit of ten coliforms per 100 ml of sample. It is recommended that water drawn from such sources should be properly disinfected before being used for drinking and other domestic applications. Among the metal ions, the concentration of iron and lead exceeds the permissible limit at one location whereas the concentration of nickel exceeds the permissible limit in 60 and 32.5% of the samples during pre- and post-monsoon seasons, respectively. The grouping of samples according to their hydrochemical facies indicates that majority of the samples fall in Ca-Mg-HCO(3) hydrochemical facies.

Physico-Chemical Properties and Microbiological Quality of Borehole Water in Four Crowded Areas of Benin City, Nigeria, During Rainfalls

“…These traces of nitrate could result from the close proximity of animal shelters and sewage disposal systems to boreholes, as it infiltrates in underground water after rainfalls. In fact, the oxidation of ammonia from animal and human wastes to nitrite has been proven to contaminate groundwater aquifer (24). Palamuleni and Akoth (22) also reported contamination of underground water by nitrate compounds from animal shelters in Mafikeng, South Africa.…”

Evaluation of Groundwater Quality and Its Suitability for Domestic and Irrigation Use in Parts of the Chandauli-Varanasi Region, Uttar Pradesh, India

“…The chloride limits have been laid down primarily from taste view point. However, no adverse health effects on human being have been reported by the use of water having high chloride concentrations [21]. Excess concentration of Cl in drinking water gives a salty taste and has a laxative effect in people not accustomed to it.…”

Geochemical characterization and evaluation of groundwater suitability for domestic and agricultural utility in semi-arid region of Basara, Telangana State, South India

“…The severity of environmental problems related to groundwater varies from place to place depending on the geology, hydrologic, climatic conditions and geochemical factors that influence. However, groundwater quality studies with reference to drinking and irrigation purposes in different regions have been carried out, viz., Anantapur (Gowd 2005), Tamil Nadu 1 3 44 Page 2 of 14 (Subramani et al 2005), Uttarakhand (Jain et al 2010), Punjab (Kumar et al 2007), Sri Lanka (Nishanthiny et al 2010), Iran (Aghazadeh and Mogaddam 2010;Narany et al 2015), Nigeria (Ackah et al 2011), andChina (Zhang et al 2012).…”