Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Hydro-geochemical Investigation and Quality
Assessment of Groundwater for Drinking
and Agricultural Use in Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU), New Delhi, India
N. Janardhana Raju, Anurag Chaudhary, Sadaf Nazneen,
Shubhra Singh, and Ankur Goyal
Introduction
Water is an essential and vital component for the life support system. Since most of
the human sufferings are directly related to water, man is always fascinated to
explore and understand the chemical content of water. Water never exists in its
purest form; as soon as it enters the atmosphere through precipitation it gathers
gases, few elements and organic material before touching the earth's surface. During
its course of flow on surface and in subsurface, the water gets dissolved with ample
number of ions, most of which are essential for the living organisms and some are
harmful if present in high concentrations. The subsurface water, most of which
originates from rainfall or surface water bodies, gains minerals during its transport
and residency period of earth's crust (Kruawal et al.
2005
; Raju
2007
; Wang
2013
;
Alam et al.
2013
). During last decades, it is observed that the intensive use of natural
resource and increased human activities are posing great threat to groundwater
quality (Foster
1995
; Mor et al.
2006
).
Each groundwater system in the area has a unique chemistry, acquired as a
result of chemical alteration of meteoric water recharging the system (Back
1966
;
Drever
1982
). The chemical alteration of the rain water depends on several factors
such as soil-water interaction, dissolution of mineral species and anthropogenic
activites (Faure
1998
). Many of the major and minor elements in limited quanti-
ties are essential for the human metabolism but if present in undesirable level they
prove very harmful and the same water turns into a disease causing commodity.
The water containing inorganic constituents beyond the permissible limits cause
different types of ailments (Raju
2012a
). Hence, it is imperative to regularly
assess the water chemistry to initiate preventive measures and guide people from
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