Research paperHeavy metal contamination, major ion chemistry and appraisal of the groundwater status in coastal aquifer, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Depletion and contamination of surface water resources, has shifted the dependency of mankind on surface water to groundwater for their domestic, irrigation and industrial needs (Nagarajan et al., 2010). As per global estimates, 60% of groundwater withdrawn is used for agriculture and the rest 40% is almost equally shared between the domestic and industrial sectors (Vrba and van der Gun, 2004). Domestic requirement of groundwater in many nations is in excess of 50% of the total groundwater withdrawn and globally around 25–40% of the drinking requirement is met from groundwater (NGWA, 2013). About 85% of India's rural domestic water requirements, 50% of its urban water requirements and more than 50% of its irrigation requirements are being met from groundwater resources (CGWB, 2014). In recent years, due to rapid growth of population, urbanization, industrialization and agriculture activities, ground water resources are under stress and there is growing concern on deterioration of groundwater quality. The groundwater quality of a particular region is governed by local geochemical and hydrological processes. Moreover, groundwater flow and residence time is controlled by topographic features like flow direction, slope, aspect, relief of landscapes etc. Anthropological attributes such as irrigation return flow, agro fertilizers, sewage, and septic tank effluents, animal waste and industrial wastes greatly alters the quality of groundwater (Vetrimurugan et al., 2013). Contamination of groundwater with anthropogenic wastes is a major problem in densely populated and heavily industrialized areas with shallow aquifers (Arumugam and Elangovan, 2009; Krishna Kumar et al., 2014). The problem can be more prominent in rural areas than their urban counter parts due to unmanaged waste disposal and lack of water treatment facility. Saline water intrusion to groundwater is other major source of groundwater contamination in coastal aquifers of India and other countries (Gopinath et al., 2016, Mtoni et al., 2013). Excess demand of groundwater for domestic and irrigation requirements in highly populated coastal regions leads to saltwater intrusion when the withdrawal exceeds the recharge rate (Mohsen et al., 1990, Mahesha and Lakshmikant, 2014). Coastal aquifers are potentially at risk of salt water intrusion, particularly in arid and semi-arid climatic regions due to scarcity of rain and high evaporation combined with over exploitation of groundwater (Grundmann et al., 2016).
All the major constituents and many of the trace elements present in groundwater are essential for metabolism and human health (WHO, 2005a, WHO, 2005b, WHO, 2005c). Regulatory agencies have formulated guidelines values for the chemical, physical and biological constituents of water in order to assess its suitability for human consumption. Suitability of groundwater for human consumption with respect to its contamination with various water quality parameters in different parts of India has been reported by Srikanth et al. (1993), Brindha et al. (2011), Bhattacharya et al. (2011), Mazumder et al. (2013), Biswas et al. (2014), Sankar et al. (2014) and Samantara et al. (2015). Many authors have reported the deleterious effects of poor drinking quality water on health in many parts of the world (Cantor, 1997, Fewtrell, 2004, Ayoob and Gupta, 2006). According to UNESCO (2007) report, 80% of the diseases and deaths in developing countries are related to water contamination (Vetrimurugan et al., 2013).
Groundwater quality of a particular region varies with space and time due to various natural hydrogeological processes (Mukherjee et al., 2014) and inputs from anthropogenic sources. Changes in the origin and constitution of the recharged water, hydrologic and human factors contribute to the temporal variation in groundwater quality (Vasanthavigar et al., 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the water quality from time to time and ascertain its suitability for drinking. The most rapid, standard and universal way to evaluate the groundwater quality is the chemical analysis and its comparison with regulatory guidelines and indices established by scientific community, government body and international organizations for water quality based on human health effects (WHO, 2005a, WHO, 2005b, WHO, 2005c).
The present study on groundwater quality was carried out in shallow coastal aquifer located around Kalpakkam, situated in the vicinity of nuclear establishments. Previous studies on groundwater of this area were primarily dealt with the groundwater geochemistry (Gurumoorthy et al., 2004; Elango and Shivkumar, 2008; Sasidhar and Vijay Kumar, 2008; Karmegam et al., 2010; Mondal et al., 2010, Mondal et al., 2011; Rani and Sasidhar, 2011; Chidambaram et al., 2011a, Chidambaram et al., 2011b, Chidambaram et al., 2012; Seshadri et al., 2013; Kanagaraj et al., 2015). However, a comprehensive study on groundwater quality of the shallow aquifer with respect to its spatio-temporal suitability for human consumption was lacking. Groundwater of this area is impacted by the agricultural activities from the surrounding agricultural land and ingress of polluted water from Buckingham canal which carries contaminated effluents from the small scale industries situated all along. Moreover increased industrialization in the recent past and resulting overexploitation of groundwater has enhanced the possibilities of saltwater ingression into the groundwater. In this study, spatio-temporal variations in groundwater quality were investigated with respect to its potability. Based on the water quality index calculated and comparison with guidelines, suitability of the water for drinking and possible health impacts is discussed.
Section snippets
Study area
The study area Kalpakkam lies between 80°08'25'' to 80°11'17'' E longitude and 12°30'12'' to 12°34'52'' N latitude (Fig. 1a), situated nearly 70 km south of Chennai city. The area is surrounded by Bay of Bengal on the east, Edaiyur backwater on the north, Buckingham canal on the west and Sadras backwater on the south. The river Palar drains into the sea near the study area. Southern end of the study area host a Government employee township having a population of about 20,000 and northern end is
Methodology
To evaluate the spatio-temporal character of groundwater quality, 228 groundwater samples were collected during June 2011 to May 2012. Samples were collected monthly once from 19 representative wells consisting of 5 open wells (W2, 3, 12, 13 and 16), 9 hand pumps (W1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15) and 5 bore wells (W4, 6, 17, 18 and 19) distributed across the study area. Depth of the wells varied from 10 to 50 feet below ground level (bgl). The study area can be divided into three different
Hydrochemical facies
The statistical summary of groundwater quality parameters is provided in Table 1. In order to understand the geochemical evolution of groundwater in different seasons, concentrations of cations and anions for pre-monsoon (PRM), monsoon (MON) and post-monsoon (POM) seasons are plotted in the Piper (1944) trilinear diagram (Fig. 2a, b, c). Four major water types were observed for all the three seasons with the interplay of (Na++K+) and Ca+2 in the cations and HCO3− and Cl− in the anions. The
Conclusion
The groundwater of the study area remained slightly acidic to slightly alkaline, fresh to brackish and hard to very hard in nature during the study period. Geochemical evolution of groundwater was interpreted from Piper plot and four distinguished groundwater types were noticed. The major water type was fresh water and the other was saline water. Studied TDS, TA, TH and nitrate concentration in a majority of wells exceeded the guideline limit making the water unfit for drinking purpose.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to Director, IGCAR, Kalpakkam for his constant encouragement and support in the pursuit of environmental research. The authors thank Dr. C. Anandan, Safety Research Institute, AERB, Kalpakkam for his help in preparing the land use and geology map of the study area.
References (88)
Nitrate contamination of groundwater: a conceptual management framework
Environ. Impact Assess.
(2007)- et al.
Spatial, vertical and temporal variation of arsenic in shallow aquifers of the Bengal Basin: controlling geochemical processes
Chem. Geol.
(2014) - et al.
Nickel essentiality, toxicity, and carcinogenicity
Crit. Rev. Oncol. Haematol.
(2002) - et al.
Determining the interaction between groundwater and saline water through groundwater major ions chemistry
J. Hydrol.
(2010) - et al.
Influence of tectonics, sedimentation and aqueous flow cycles on the origin of global groundwater arsenic: paradigms from three continents
J. Hydrol.
(2014) - et al.
Dietary reference intakes: vitamin A, vitamin K, arsenic, boron, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, vanadium, and zinc
J. Am. Diet. Assoc.
(2001) - et al.
Non-agricultural sources of groundwater nitrate: a review and case study
Water Res.
(2005) - et al.
Spectrum of poisoning requiring hemodialysis in a tertiary care hospital in India
Int. J. Artif. Organs
(1993) - et al.
Hydrochemical characteristics and groundwater quality assessment in Tirupur region, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, India
Environ. Geol.
(2009) - et al.
Fluoride in drinking water: a review on the status and stress effects
Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol.
(2006)
Potable water quality goals
J. Am. Water Works Assoc.
Drinking Water Specification
Fluoride contamination in groundwater in parts of Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh, India
Environ. Monit. Assess.
Drinking water and cancer
Cancer Causes Control.
Canadian Water Quality Index 1.0 Technical Report and User's Manual. Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines
Dynamics of Groundwater Resources of India
A study on evaluation of probable sources of heavy metal pollution in groundwater of Kalpakkam region, South India
Environmentalist
A study on hydrochemical elucidation of coastal groundwater in and around Kalpakkam region, Sothern India
Environ. Earth Sci.
Significance of saturation index of certain clay minerals in shallow coastal groundwater, in and around Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India
J. Earth Syst. Sci.
Fluorine contamination in groundwater: a major challenge
Environ. Monit. Assess.
Hydrogeology
Groundwater geochemistry and health
Zinc
A Model for Establishing Upper Levels of Intake for Nutrients and Related Substances
Drinking-water nitrate, methemoglobinemia and global burden of disease: a discussion
Environ. Health Persp.
Groundwater
Fluoride in drinking water – its effects and removal
Def. Sci. J.
Modeling saline water intrusion in Nagapattinam coastal aquifers, Tamilnadu, India
Model. Earth Syst. Environ.
Significance and removal of manganese in water supplies
J. Am. Water Works Assoc.
Sub-surface investigations on deep saline groundwater of charnockite rock formation, Kalpakkam, India
Environ. Monit. Assess.
Intestinal effects of sulfate in drinking water on normal human subjects
Dig. Dis. Sci.
Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium and Zinc. A Report of the Panel on Micronutrients, Subcommittees on Upper Reference Levels of Nutrients and of Interpretation and Use of Dietary Reference Intakes, and the Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes. Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine
Natural groundwater quality and health
Geol. Acta
Assessment of groundwater quality and seawater intrusion along the coastal aquifer around Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India
J. Coast. Sci.
Geochemical characterization of groundwater's of shallow coastal aquifer in and around Kalpakkam, South India
Res. J. Environ. Earth Sci.
Assessment of groundwater flow model for an unconfined coastal aquifer
Int. J. Innov. Res. Sci. Eng. Technol.
Hydrogeochemistry and groundwater quality appraisal of part of south Chennai coastal aquifers, Tamil Nadu, India using WQI and fuzzy logic method
Appl. Water Sci.
Nitrate enrichment in groundwater from long-term intensive agriculture: its mechanistic pathways and prediction through modeling
Environ. Sci. Technol.
Fluoride contamination status of groundwater in Karnataka
Curr. Sci.
Risk assessment and risk management for nitrate-contaminated groundwater supplies
Saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers subjected to freshwater pumping
J. Hydrol. Eng.
Evaluation of dietary arsenic exposure and its biomarkers: a case study of West Bengal, India
J. Environ. Sci. Heal. Part A
Cited by (51)
Advances in adsorption of Pb(II) by MOFs-based nanocomposites in water
2024, Progress in Natural Science: Materials InternationalStatus of heavy metals and metalloid concentrations in water resources and associated health risks in parts of Indo-Gangetic plain, India
2023, Groundwater for Sustainable DevelopmentAnalytical modeling of contaminant transport along sloping coastal beaches in presence of tidal waves and exponential rainfall infiltration
2023, Journal of Contaminant HydrologyImpacts of open dumpsite leachates on soil and groundwater quality
2023, Groundwater for Sustainable DevelopmentCitation Excerpt :Open dumpsites are the most common practice all over the world for municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal and their environmental impacts have received much attention in the last decades (El-salam & Abu-zuid, 2015; Mishra et al., 2019), especially in developing countries where most solid wastes are carelessly disposed. Environmental impacts and public health risks of open dumpsites include subsoil contamination, groundwater pollution, generation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and creation of greenhouse gas emissions remain issues of great concern (Charles et al., 2013; Samantar et al., 2017; Vaccari et al., 2018). Unlike developed countries, most African countries rely on open dumpsites without a standardized sanitary landfill (Omeiza et al., 2022).