Environmental Chemistry of Groundwater Near an Industrial Area, Northwest China

Abstract

Groundwater is a vital source of domestic, industrial, agricultural uses in arid areas where precipitation and fresh surface water are limited.With the rapid development of industry and population growth in developing countries like China, human activity induced groundwater over-exploitation and pollution have become more and more serious. It is reported that there are as many as 2.8 million wells in China 1 and the heavy groundwater extraction has caused many problems such as groundwater level drop, salt water intrusion, ground surface depression, etc. In addition, nitrate pollution caused by agricultural activities has also been widely reported in many parts of China 2-6 . All these reports have indicated that China faces a serious situation of groundwater pollution.These years, many water quality assessment methods have been proposed 7,8 . Water quality index (WQI) is a relatively easy tool and it has been widely used all over the world for the quality assessment of groundwater and surface water. Bordalo et al. 9 used a modified nine-parameter Scottish water quality index to assess the monthly water quality of the Douro river, an internationally shared river, during a 10-year period (1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001), while Chaturvedi et al. 10 assessed the groundwater quality near an industrial area of Balrampur city, India.Zhongning Shikong industrial area is located in the north bank of the Yellow river, Zhongning County, covering an area of 54 km 2 . There are several metal smelting plants in this area such as Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Company Limited

Health Risk of the Shallow Groundwater and Its Suitability for Drinking Purpose in Tongchuan, China

“…The groundwater classification on the basis of TDS and TH [14,31,58,59] in Tongchuan are as follows (Table 2): 35.4% and 64.6% of samples were hard water or very hard water; 47.9% were desirable and permissible for drinking; 95.8% were fresh water and 4.2% were brackish. In addition, the TH values of water are the measures of the dissolved Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ content, which are expressed in CaCO 3 mg/L and can be associated EC, which is normally twice the hardness for uncontaminated water [23,57]. Otherwise, if it is higher than that proportion, it provides information on the presence of components such as Na + , Cl − or SO 4…”

“…The increment of the population also leads to the expansion of cities and municipal waste that affect the groundwater quality through organic and inorganic contaminants [17][18][19][20]. Furthermore, industrialization is one of the most significant factors affecting groundwater quality through the effluents released into the nature [21][22][23][24]. Papazotos et al [25] Water 2021, 13, 3256 2 of 19 investigated the impact of water-rock and agricultural activities in the Psachna Basin (Greece) on groundwater quality and found that groundwater was strongly affected by the ultramafic geological environment with anthropogenic activities as revealed by high concentrations of Cr, Cr 6+ , and NO 3 − .…”