Seasonal variation of the quality of groundwater resources for human consumption and industrial purposes in the Central Plain Zone of Punjab, India

Abstract

Abstract Due to environmental pollution, climate change and anthropogenic activities, the judicious use and quality of groundwater for industrial, agricultural, and drinking purposes had garnered a lot of attention. In order to access the seasonal suitability of groundwater on the basis of hydrochemistry and different indices, 196 groundwater samples were collected and analysed for different physicochemical parameters. The results revealed that only 1.02 percent of water samples from pre and post monsoon season exceeded the permissible limits of WHO and BIS guidelines for suitability of drinking water. The TDS content was also within the permissible limits with mean value of 523.7 and 565.6 mg/L for pre and post monsoon seasons, respectively. The concentration of Ca2+, Mg2+ were within the permissible limits whereas chloride content (29.1% and 15.3% during pre and post monsoon period, respectively) exceeds the permissible limits. The sulphate ion concentration (mean value of 0.46 meq L-1) also ranged between the permissible limits. Based upon water quality index (WQI), none of the water sample was unfit for drinking purpose whereas synthetic pollution index (SPI) categorized all the samples as moderately polluted during both the seasons. For industrial purpose suitability, the various indices i.e., LSI (39.8 and 30.6 % have high corrosive tendency during pre and post monsoon, respectively), CSMR (98.4 and 100 % have tendency for galvanic corrosion during pre and post monsoon, respectively) and aggressive index (49.5% were severely corrosive during pre-monsoon period) showed quite variable results. Moreover, only 1.0 per cent of the total water samples seem to be strongly affected by salinization during pre-monsoon period.