Observations on Groundwater Contamination with Nitrogen Compounds: A Case Study from Medias town, Sibiu County

Abstract

Worldwide, the groundwater (water well and public spring) is used as drinking water source. The water quality is important due to the possible negative effects on the consumers' health, especially for infants. Nitrogen compounds (NO 2 -, NO 3 -, NH 4 + ) are present as natural components of the nitrogen cycle and their presence in the groundwater is ubiquitous. But, due to the anthropogenic activities high concentrations of nitrogen compounds are release into the groundwater, thereby the chemical compounds concentrations exceed the maximum allowable concentrations (MACs). The purpose of the present study was to assess the content of nitrogen compounds in groundwater, namely private water wells and public springs used as drinking water sources by the Medias town population. The study results show alarming NO 2 -and NO 3 -concentrations; the NO 3 -concentrations exceed 5 times the MAC and NO 2 -concentrations exceed 3 times the MAC.

Hydrochemical Characteristics and Formation Mechanism of Quaternary Groundwater in Baoshan Basin, Western Yunnan, China

“…The Piper trilinear diagram can reflect the main anions and cations in groundwater and their concentration ratios, and provides a classification basis for analyzing groundwater chemical types [33], which plays a very important role in revealing hydrogeochemical laws. According to the analysis of the Piper diagram (Figure 5), the water sample points mainly fall in the 1/3/5 zone of the Piper diagram, indicating that the mass concentra-tions of alkaline earth metal ions in the samples all exceed the mass concentrations of alkali metal ions.…”