Abstract
The study’s objectives are to evaluate the combined threats to the drinking-water quality of Mulbagal town from fluoride and pit toilet leachate contamination, prioritize drinking-water hazards, and provide recommendations for safe drinking water. The objectives were achieved by measuring the tube well’s inorganic and microbial water quality, statistical analysis of the data, evaluating E. coli contamination and free chlorine residual levels during transport and storage, and performing qualitative risk analysis to prioritize drinking-water hazards. The tube-well samples conformed to the acceptable (1.0 mg/L)/permissible (1.5 mg/L) fluoride limits in drinking water. Pearson correlation and hierarchical cluster analysis tools indicated that tube wells inside the town are prone to blackwater contamination. Nitrate (55 to 388 mg/L) and E. coli (2 to 1601 CFU/100 mL) contaminated eighty-four % and seventy-seven % of tube wells inside the town. Qualitative risk analysis indicated that acute and chronic ailments would most certainly impact a large town population if they were to drink tube-well water contaminated with E. coli and nitrate pollutants. Drinking tube-well water from outside the town posed an insignificant risk of nitrate contamination. Microbial contamination during water transport exposes the large population to the daily ill effects of E. coli contamination. Adequate chlorination should be performed in storage reservoirs to maintain 0.2 mg/L of free chlorine residual in the household water containers after 24 h.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Admasie A, Debebe A (2016) Estimating access to drinking water supply, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in Wolaita Sodo town, Southern Ethiopia, in reference to national coverage. J Environ Public Health Artic 2:1–9
AS/NZS (1999) Risk management standard AS/NZS 4360. Standards Australia, Standards New Zealand, Standards Association of Australia, New South Wales, Australia
Banerjee G (2011) Underground pollution travel from leach pits of on-site sanitation facilities: a case study. Clean Technol Environ Policy 13:489–497
Banks D, Karnachuk OV, Parnachev VP, Holden W, Frengstad B (2002) Groundwater contamination from rural pit latrines: examples from Siberia and Kosova. Water and Environ J 16:147–152
Bhunia R, Ramakrishnan R, Hutin Y, Gupte MD (2009) Cholera outbreak secondary to contaminated pipe water in an urban area, West Bengal, India, 2006. Indian J Gastroenterol 28:62–64
BIS 10500 (2012) Indian standards drinking water specifications. Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India
Brick T, Primrose B, Chandrasekhar R, Roy S, Muliyil J, Kang G (2004) Water contamination in urban south India: household storage practices and their implications for water safety and enteric infections. Int J Hyg Environ Health 207:473–480
Census (2011) Mulbagal town-Kolar Karnataka. https://www.censusindia2011.com/karnataka/kolar/mulbagal/mulbagal-tmc-population.html. Accessed 29 Aug 2022
Chakraborti D, Das B, Murrill MT (2011) Examining India’s groundwater quality management. Environ Sci Technol 45:27–33
Damania R, Desbureaux S, Rodella AS, Russ J, Zaveri E (2019) Quality unknown: the invisible water crisis. World Bank Publications, Washington DC
Davison A, Howard G, Stevens M, Callan P et al (2011) Water safety plans: Managing drinking-water quality from catchment to consumer. Water, Sanitation and Health Protection and the Human Environment Report, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
Deutsch WJ (1997) Groundwater geochemistry-fundamentals and applications to contamination. Lewis Publishers, New York
Falconi TMA, Kulinkina AV, Mohan VR et al (2017) Quantifying tap-to-household water quality deterioration in urban communities in Vellore, India: the impact of spatial assumptions. Int J Hyg Environ Health 220:29–36
Free Chlorine Testing (2020) CDC safe water systems project. https://www.cdc.gov/safewater/chlorine-residual-testing.html. Accessed 19 Sep 2021
Graham JP, Polizzotto ML (2013) Pit latrines and their impacts on groundwater quality: a systematic review. Environ Health Perspect 121:521–530
Handa BK (1975) Geochemistry and genesis of fluoride-containing ground waters in India. Ground Water 13:275–281
Hellstrom D, Johansson E, Grennberg K (1999) Storage of human urine: acidification as a method to inhibit decomposition of urea. Ecol Eng 12:253–269
Hem JD (1985) Study and interpretation of the chemical characteristics of natural water, 3rd edn. US Geol Survey, Virginia
Jonsson H, Stenstrom TA, Svensson J, Sundin A (1997) Source separated urine-nutrient and heavy metal content, water saving and fecal contamination. Water Sci Technol 35:145–152
Jordening HJ, Winter J (2005) Environmental biotechnology: concepts and applications. Wiley, New York
Kelly JJ, Minalt N, Culotti A, Pryor M, Packman A (2014) Temporal variations in the abundance and composition of biofilm communities colonizing drinking water distribution pipes. PLoS ONE 9(5):e98452
Kresic N (2007) Hydrogeology and groundwater modeling. CRC Press, New York
Lavanya V, Ravichandran S (2013) Microbial contamination of drinking water at the source and household storage level in the peri-urban area of southern Chennai and its implication on health, India. J Public Health 21:481–488
Levy K, Nelson KL, Hubbard A, Eisenberg JNS (2008) Following the water: a controlled study of drinking water storage in northern coastal ecuador. Environ Health Perspect 116:1533–1540
Merkel BJ, Friedrich BP (2002) Groundwater geochemistry-a practical guide to modeling of natural and contaminated aquatic systems. Springer, New York
Metcalf and Eddy Inc (2003) Wastewater engineering: treatment and reuse, 4th edn. McGraw-Hill, New York
Nadhamuni S (2012) An approach to integrated urban water management. In: The Mulbagal experience. https://arghyam.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/iuwm-FOR-WEB.pdf. Accessed 23 Jun 2021
Nishimuta M, Inoue N, Koduma N, Moriknni E et al (2006) Moisture and mineral content of human feces – high fecal moisture is associated with increased sodium and decreased potassium content. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol 52:121–126
Nordstrom DK, Jenne EA (1977) Fluorite solubility equilibria in selected geothermal waters. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 41:175–188
Palmquist H, Hanaeus J (2005) Hazardous substances in separately collected grey and blackwater from ordinary Swedish households. Sci Total Environ 348:151–163
Pujari PR, Padmakar C, Labhasetwar PK, Mahore P, Ganguly AK (2012) Assessment of the impact of on-site sanitation systems on groundwater pollution in two diverse geological settings—a case study from India. Environ Monit Assess 184:251–263
Rao SM, Sekhar M, Raghuveer Rao P (2013) Impact of pit-toilet leachate on groundwater chemistry and role of vadose zone in removal of nitrate and E. coli. pollutants in Kolar District, Karnataka, India. Environ Earth Sci 68:927–938
Rao SM, Nitish VM, Lydia A (2020a) Role of evaporation in NH4-N transformations in soils artificially contaminated with blackwater. Water Supply 20:165–172
Rao SM, Nitish MV, Priscilla A, Lydia A (2020b) Aqueous chemistry of anthropogenically contaminated Bengaluru lakes. Sustain Environ Res 30:1–16
Ray H, Saetta D, Boyer TH (2018) Characterization of urea hydrolysis in fresh human urine and inhibition by chemical addition. Environ Sci: Water Res Technol 4:87–98
Rose C, Parker A, Jefferson B, Cartmell E (2015) The characterization of feces and urine: a review of the literature to inform advanced treatment technology. Crit Rev Environ Sci Technol 45:1827–1879
Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Department (2021) Drinking water. https://english.swachhamevajayate.org/water-2/. Accessed 27 Sep 2021
Schouw NL, Danteravanich S, Mosbaek H, Tjell JC (2002) Composition of human excreta – a case study from southern Thailand. Sci Total Environ 286:155–166
Sekhar M, Shindekar M, Tomar SK, Goswami P (2013) Modeling the vulnerability of an urban groundwater system due to the combined impacts of climate change and management scenarios. Earth Interact 17:1–25
UNESCO (2022) The United Nations world water development report 2022: groundwater: making the invisible visible. UNESCO, Paris
UNICEF (2021) Re-imagining WASH. Water security for all. https://www.unicef.org/media/95241/file/water-security-for-all.pdf. Accessed on 17 Jul 2022
UN-Water (Progress on Sanitation) SDG Target 6.2. https://sdg6data.org/indicator/6.2.1a. Accessed on 17 Jul 2022
UN-Water (WASH) Water, sanitation and hygiene. https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/. Accessed on 17 Jul 2022
Vinger B, Hlophe M, Selvaratnam M (2012) Relationship between nitrogenous pollution of borehole waters and distances separating them from pit latrines and fertilized fields. Life Sci J 9:402–407
Wade TJ, Pai N, Eisenberg JNS, Colford JM Jr (2003) Do U.S. environmental protection agency water quality guidelines for recreational waters prevent gastrointestinal illness? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Environ Health Perspect 111:1102–1110
WHO (2018) E. coli https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/e-coli. Accessed on 21 Jul 2022
WHO (2022) Drinking water. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water. Accessed on 17 Jul 2022.
Wright J, Gundry S, Conroy R (2004) Household drinking water in developing countries: a systematic review of microbiological contamination between source and point-of-use. Trop Med Int Health 9:106–117
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges Arghyam Foundation, Bangalore, for funding the research project.
Funding
Arghyam Foundation, Bangalore, ARG001, Sudhakar Rao
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Rao, S.M. Identifying drinking-water quality threats for a small town in Karnataka by geogenic and anthropogenic contaminants. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 9, 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00782-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00782-2