Groundwater Quality Evaluation for Potable Use and Associated Human Health Risk in Gaobeidian City, North China Plain

Abstract

The groundwater in Gaobeidian city is used for drinking, irrigation, industrial production, and other purposes. With the rapid development of the economy and urbanization, groundwater quality has been seriously affected. The main purposes of this paper are to evaluate the groundwater quality in the study area on the basis of understanding the hydrochemical characteristics of the study area and assess the possible health risks of groundwater to children and adults. In this paper, the entropy weight method was used to determine the weight of each evaluation parameter, and on this basis, groundwater quality evaluation was carried out, and the spatial distribution map of groundwater quality was drawn according to the evaluation results. The results show that the weight values of the five parameters of NO2–, Fe, As, Cr6+, and NO2–N are more than 0.1 among the total of fifteen parameters, and the concentration of these five parameters can be considered as the main influencing parameters of groundwater quality. The calculation results of the entropy weighted water quality index (EWQI) show that all the groundwater quality in the study area is class 1 water, which is Excellent Water. However, the EWQI value is the highest in the southwest of the study area, showing a trend of deterioration of groundwater water quality. Since all groundwater samples were evaluated as “excellent water,” it was speculated that the natural environment had more influence on groundwater chemical characteristics than human factors. The study found that 7.407% and 55.556% of the water samples posed a noncarcinogenic health risk to adults and children, respectively. The main responsible parameters for noncarcinogenic risk are F−, NO2−, NO3−, and Cr6+. The carcinogenic risk for adults ranged from 0 to 6.91E-04, with a mean of 1.00E-04. The carcinogenic risk for children ranged from 0 to 1.03E-03, with a mean of 1.55E-04. These toxic elements are mainly from industries. Therefore, the deterioration of groundwater quality can be prevented by strengthening the sewage management of various industries.