Year: 2015 | Month: December | volume 2 | Issue 2
Status of ground water quality in selected shallow aquifers of Saharsa district, the Kosi megafan, the North Bihar Plains
Pranav Shankar and Amitava Rakshit
DOI:Coming Soon
Abstract:
Water is one of the most indispensable resource and the elixir of life. Ground water is one of the major source of drinking water in India and therefore, it plays a vital role in human health. Generally, ground water is extracted through hand pump in Saharsa district (The Kosi megafan, The North Bihar Plains). Geogenic and anthropogenic activities are the two factors responsible for the quality degradation of ground water. Excessive ground water extraction for agriculture, industries and domestic utilization, made it liable to deterioration. Keeping these considerations, a study was conducted to evaluate the physio-chemical properties viz., pH, EC, turbidity, hardness, alkalinity, TDS, chloride, fluoride, nitrate, sulphate and iron of water samples obtained from the 10 blocks namely Sattarkatiya, Saurbazar, Kahra, Pattarghat, Navhatta, BanmaIthari, Salkhua, Mahishi, Simri-Bakhtiyarpur and Sonbarsa and the urban region (city part) of Saharsa district, Bihar. Among the various parameters, iron and fluoride content in some locations were found surpassing the permissible limit. The parameters were analyzed and compared with the standards values as prescribed by American Public Health Association (APHA), World Health Organization (WHO), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). General recommendation as the permissible limits for iron is 0.3-1 mg/L and fluoride is 1.0-1.5 mg/L. However, status of iron and fluoride in the study area were found in the range of 0.3-4.1 mg/L and 0.2-1.5 mg/L respectively, which shows that there is a requirement of holistic approach to improve the quality of ground water.
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