Assessment and Indexing of Groundwater Quality of Udham Singh Nagar District of Uttarakhand for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes
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International Journal of Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences(IJREAS) Available online at http://euroasiapub.org/journals.php Vol. 8 Issue 10, October -2018 ISSN (O): 2249-3905, ISSN(P): 2349-6525 | Impact Factor: 7.196 Assessment and Indexing of Groundwater Quality of Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes Neelam Bunkar* Ex. M.Tech. Student Vinod Kumar** Professor (Corresponding Author) Email Id: [email protected] Department of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar – 263145 (U.S. Nagar), Uttrakhand, India ABSTRACT The intensive agriculture, rapid industrialization and urban growth are the common cause of contamination of groundwater in the whole world and India is not separate from this situation. The Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand, being rich in fertile land and water resources, is most favoured for industrial development also. In recent years, the demand for water has increased many folds due to rapid urbanization and establishment of Integrated Industrial Estate (IIE) at Pantnagar, Kashipur and Sitarganj area of the district. The pace of rapid urbanization and industrialization, clubbed with irrigation needs, require groundwater resource planning and monitoring in the wider context of regional scale. Such a plan needs a systematic study to know the spatial distribution of water quality so that any sustainable approach could be implemented in the area. The parameters selected for the physico-chemical analysis of groundwater samples were namely, pH, TDS, EC, DO, Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, NO3, total hardness, alkalinity and turbidity along with the colour, odour, and taste for the assessment of water quality for potable use. The drinking water quality indexing of the groundwater of Udham Singh Nagar district was based on the selected physico-chemical parameters, and standard & permissible limits prescribed by BIS, ICMR and WHO for drinking purpose. The water quality parameters, selected for the indexing for irrigation use were electrical conductivity, sodium adsorption ratio and concentration of chloride, sodium and bicarbonate ions measured in meq/l. The weighted arithmetic index method was used in the assessment of water quality index. The groundwater at Jaspur, Kashipur, Bazpur, Gadarpur, Rudrapur, Sitarganj and Khatima blocks was found to have moderate contamination and was classed almost equally under ‘good’ and ‘poor’ category. The groundwater near Gadarpur was found worst affected and had been classified as ‘very poor’. The increased nitrate concentration was observed at some locations due to application of inorganic nitrogenous fertilizer and manure as the district as a whole is under extensive agricultural activities. No toxicity due to specific ions was observed in the groundwater as all the samples were having SAR value less than 3.0. About 92.68 per cent samples were found within the safe limit of chloride content for irrigation of all crops on any soil. The water quality index showed that for irrigation, the groundwater should be used with moderate to high restrictions with adequate leaching on high permeability soils. Keywords : Water quality, Physico-chemical analysis, Groundwater pollution, Weighted arithmetic index, Nemerow Pollution Index International Journal of Research in Engineering & Applied Sciences 1 Email:- [email protected], http://www.euroasiapub.org An open access scholarly, Online, print, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, monthly, and fully refereed journal. International Journal of Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences(IJREAS) Vol. 8 Issue 10, October -2018 ISSN (O): 2249-3905, ISSN(P): 2349-6525 | Impact Factor: 7.196 Introduction Water is indispensable for human civilization, living organisms, and natural habitat. Though the water has multiple benefits such as drinking and domestic use, agricultural irrigation and industrial use but its excess or shortage and quality deterioration creates several problems also. About 1600 million km3 water is present on the earth in different forms of moisture. A huge quantity of moisture, in various forms, is moved on and around the earth through hydrological cycle. A major portion (about 97%) of water available on the earth is lying in the deep oceans which, being rich in salt concentration, is unsuitable for human consumption and other beneficial uses. The water stored in lakes is also not suitable for potable use and dissemination of wildlife and fish culture due to the dumping of wastes from municipal and domestic sources and agricultural runoff. Only about two percent of water resources i.e., 35 million km3 is accessible as fresh water, out of which 24 million km3 (68.7%) is in frozen state, 10.5 million km3 (30%) is stored in aquifers as groundwater reserves and only 1.05 million km3 (0.3%) is available on the earth surface in rivers, lakes and swamps. Only 1 percent of the total worlds’ water is available for human consumption [1]. Water quality index (WQI), introduced by [2], has been a useful tool for water quality monitoring programs, to study trends in water quality, and to evaluate the impacts of corrective measures on water quality. Water quality indices enable the processing of the composite water quality data for an effective transformation in to environmental information [3]. It provides the unique numerical value that expresses overall quality of water, based on the different physico- chemical parameters. WQI basically involves some mathematical calculations to convert the bulk water quality data, in the form of concentration of physico-chemical parameters, into a cumulatively derived numerical expression, indicating the level of water quality on a scale varying from zero (for excellent water quality) to hundred (for poor quality). This, consecutively, is essential for evaluating the water quality of different sources and in observing the changes in the water quality of a given source as a function of time and other influencing factors [4][5]. Study Area Udham Singh Nagar district geographical located in the Tarai region of Kumaon division of Uttarakhand, India. On the basis of the geographical area of 3055 km2, the district ranks at 9th place in Uttarakhand state. The spread of the district is from 28° 53' to 29° 23' N latitude and from 78° 45' E to 80° 08' E longitudes. The Udham Singh Nagar district is surrounded by Nainital and Champawat districts of Uttarakhand on north boundary, Moradabad, Rampur, Bareilly, Philibhit and Bijnor districts of Uttar Pradesh on south and west boundary and Nepal on the east boundary. The Sarada river forms the international boundary between India and Nepal. The study area falls in Survey of India Toposheet Nos. 53K, O, P and 62D. For the Administrative convenience, the district has been divided into 7 developmental blocks and 7 tehsils, viz. Japsur, Kashipur, Bazpur, Gadarpur, Rudrapur, Sitarganj and Khatima with the district’s headquarters at Rudrapur. The administrative map of district Udham Singh Nagar is shown in Fig. 1. International Journal of Research in Engineering & Applied Sciences 2 Email:- [email protected], http://www.euroasiapub.org An open access scholarly, Online, print, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, monthly, and fully refereed journal. International Journal of Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences(IJREAS) Vol. 8 Issue 10, October -2018 ISSN (O): 2249-3905, ISSN(P): 2349-6525 | Impact Factor: 7.196 Fig. 1. Administrative map of district Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand Material and Methods The water samples were collected, from the hand pumps spread over entire Udham Singh Nagar district and few points in the neighbouring districts, in 2000 ml sampling bottles. The collected samples were brought to the laboratory, located at the Department of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, without adding any preservative and stored in incubator at 20oC to prevent any contamination. In total, the groundwater samples were collected from 82 locations comprising of 70 locations spread over the seven developmental blocks of Udham Singh Nagar district and 10 locations in the surrounding districts of Nainital, Champawat, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Rampur and Moradabad. The sampling locations are presented in Fig. 2. Fig. 2. Sampling locations For calculation of the water quality index (WQI) fifteen important physico-chemical parameters were chosen. The WQI has been calculated by using standards of drinking water quality as well as irrigation water quality recommended by WHO [6], BIS [7], ICMR [8] and FAO International Journal of Research in Engineering & Applied Sciences 3 Email:- [email protected], http://www.euroasiapub.org An open access scholarly, Online, print, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, monthly, and fully refereed journal. International Journal of Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences(IJREAS) Vol. 8 Issue 10, October -2018 ISSN (O): 2249-3905, ISSN(P): 2349-6525 | Impact Factor: 7.196 [9]. The weighted arithmetic index method has been used for calculation of WQI for portable water and Irrigation water quality index has been calculated by using following expression. (Va Vi ) Qi x100 (For Drinking water) … (Si Vi ) 1 Where, Va and Vi are actual and ideal values of water quality parameters present in the water sample. For all parameters the ideal value is zero except for pH and DO. Vi for pH is 7 and but for dissolved oxygen the ideal value Vi is 14.6 mg/l. The irrigation water quality rating was estimated by following the criteria and the tolerance limits suggested by [9] and the method suggested by [10]. The following equation was used in calculating Qi of the respective parameter. x ij x inf Qi Qimax * Qiamp ( For Irrigation water) … 2 x amp Unit weight was calculated by a value inversely proportional to the recommended standard value Si of the corresponding parameter. K Wi … 3 Si Where Si is the recommended standard value of the ith parameter and K is the proportionality constant defined as follows: 1 K … 4 1 1 1 1 ......... S1 S2 S3 Sn The total sum of weighting factors of every considered parameter must equal 1, in other words, all the parameters in WQI represent 100% of the WQI final value.