Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2012) 1e9 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro Drinking water quality and human health risk in Charsadda district, Pakistan Sardar Khan a,b,*, Maria Shahnaz a, Noor Jehan a, Shafiqur Rehman a, M. Tahir Shah c, Islamud Din d a Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25120, Pakistan b Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China c National Center of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Pakistan d Department of Environmental Sciences, Islamic International University Islamabad, Pakistan article info abstract Article history: Access to safe drinking water is one of the basic human rights and essential for healthy life. The present Received 24 March 2011 study investigated the concentrations of various pollutants in drinking water and health risk in Char- Received in revised form sadda district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Water samples were collected from dug-wells, tube-wells 3 February 2012 and hand pumps which were the most common sources of drinking water and analyzed for physical Accepted 3 February 2012 parameters, anions, heavy metals and coliform bacteria using standard methods. The concentrations of Available online xxx À À nitrate (10.3e14.84 mg L 1) in 13 sites exceeded the permissible limit (10 mg L 1) set by US-EPA, while À À sulfate concentrations (505e555 mg L 1) in 9 sites exceeded the permissible limit (500 mg L 1) set by Keywords: Anions WHO. Similarly, the concentrations of Pb, Cd, Ni and Fe exceeded their respective permissible limits set e Coliform by different organizations in some locations. Furthermore, the coliform bacterial contamination (2 5 À1 Drinking water MPN 100 mL ) was also found in some sources of water, confirming the bacterial contamination of Health problems drinking water. In the study area, improper disposal of sewage and solid wastes, over application of Heavy metals agrochemicals (pesticides and fertilizers), deteriorating condition of piping network and transportation were the major sources responsible for contamination of drinking water. Water contamination with coliform bacteria was the main source of waterborne diseases like gastroenteritis, dysentery, diarrhea and viral hepatitis as complained by most of the respondents during questionnaire survey. In order to reduce the health risk, it is necessary to immediately stop the uses of drinking water from contaminated sources and government should supply treated/clean water with supply lines far away from solid waste, sludge and sewage sites. The farmers should be properly trained to avoid the overusing of agrochemicals responsible for drinking water contamination, while both women and men should be properly educated with water knowledge through awareness and training programs needed for sustainable use and management of drinking water. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction toxicity due to excessive intake. Nitrate (NO3) and nitrites (NO2)are found naturally in water (Jordao et al., 2002) and the toxicology of Drinking water contamination with different chemicals and nitrate to humans is mainly attributable to its reduction to nitrite. heavy metals, released from different anthropogenic sources has The major biological effect of nitrite is its involvement in the become a global concern (Rapant and Krcmova, 2007). Drinking oxidation of normal hemoglobin to methaemoglobin, which is water pollution is a relatively new problem and increases the stress unable to transport oxygen to the tissues. The dominant human arising as a result of unprecedented population growth, urbaniza- health risk associated with nitrate consumption is considered to be tion, and industrialization since 1990s (Chen, 2002; Velea et al., of methaemoglobinaemia by nitrate-derived nitrite (Gupta et al., 2009). The contamination of water resources has important 2000). Heavy metal concentrations in water can be attributed to repercussions for the environment and human health (Emmanuel both geogenic and anthropogenic sources. The most significant et al., 2009; Muhammad et al., 2011). geogenic sources of metals are weathering of rocks, ore deposits Generally, drinking water containing different anions and heavy and volcanic activities from which the released metals find their metals including Cd, Cr, Co, Hg, Ni, Pb, Zn etc, has significant way into the water bodies. The excessive ingestion of all these adverse effects on human health either through deficiency or heavy metals including Cd, Cr, Co, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn has carcino- genic effects on human health (Muhammad et al., 2011). * Corresponding author. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Many researchers have also worked on the water and human Peshawar, Peshawar 25120, Pakistan. Tel.: þ92 91 9216742. right. Kemp et al. (2010) suggested that different developmental E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Khan). 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.02.016 Please cite this article in press as: Khan, S., et al., Drinking water quality and human health risk in Charsadda district, Pakistan, Journal of Cleaner Production (2012), doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.02.016 2 S. Khan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2012) 1e9 activities, such as mining, pose great risk to human rights to access to This district covers an area of 996 km2 and has a total population clean drinking water. There are a number of human rights that are approximately 1 million persons with women and men ratio 1.08:1 not included in international laws as distinct rights, but are agreed (DCR, 1998). It is officially divided into three tehsils such as Char- by many international frameworks, one of them is the right of access sadda, Tangi, and Shabqadar. The inhabitants of the study area are to clean drinking water. However, international campaigns for enjoying four seasons in a year namely summer, autumn, winter and access to clean drinking water and anti-privatization campaign spring with an average rainfall of 16.5 cm. Agriculture is the main could augment the political priority towards water and well enforce profession of the people, while scattered poultry, livestock, bee and government and state to insure basic water needs (Bakker, 2007). fish farms are also present in the study area. Industrial sector is not Furthermore, fresh water scarcity is increasing globally because of well developed and sugar mills and paper mills are closed. However, overpopulation (Domènech and Saurí, 2011; Lambooy, 2011). some cottage (small scale) industries including leather shoes Governments of many developing countries consider the provi- (Chappal), handmade weaving cloth (Khamta), embroidery and sion of safe water supplies as one of their major responsibilities. In brown sugar industries are the major economic activities in the developing countries most of the people do not have access to safe Charsadda district. Dug-wells, tube-wells and hand pumps are the drinking water. Drinking water contaminated with animal and most common sources of drinking water in the Charsadda district. human feces is the major route of transmission of pathogens to human beings. Intermittent water supply, insufficient chlorination 2.2. Water sampling and sewage flooding seem to be associated with self-reported diseases (Abu-Amr and Yassin, 2008). Many developing regions Water samples were collected from different sources including suffer from either chronic shortages of fresh water or the readily tube wells, dug wells and hand pumps, as shown in Fig. 1. From each accessible resources are heavily polluted. Accelerated population sampling point, two samples were collected in separate clean poly- growth coupled with impoverished socioeconomic development thene bottles. Different sampling procedures were employed for with limited water resources and poor sanitation leads to an different types of water sources and all the precautions were taken. increase in diseases associated with poor living conditions among Water of tube well and hand pump was allowed to run for a couple of which water related and water borne diseases play a major role minutes before filling the bottles and then reduced the water flow to (Lehloesa and Muyima, 2000). Globally, women play a major role in permit filling of bottle without splashing. First of all, gases from the health, sanitation and household water supply and are involved in bottles were expelled by filling up, then emptying over the source, management and conservation of water resources. and refilled in the same manner. In case of hand pump sources, water Being a developing country, Pakistan needs to address a vast array was left to run for about 5 min before collecting samples. Separate of problems regarding water availability, quality, usage and death samples were collected for chemical and biological analyses with caused by water-borne diseases. In Pakistan, potable groundwater necessary precautions for sampling and sample preservation. At each has given a greater boost to the availability in general and is being point, one bottle was filled with water having no acid and air bubbles, utilized through tube wells, hand pumps and open wells. The rising while the other bottle was filled with the water from the same site interest of the private sector in groundwater development has and acidified by adding a few drops of 5% HNO3 to stop the microbial encouraged the Government of