Abstract
Almost all water supply systems in Kabul, especially public water supply, use groundwater resources to supply the required domestic water of the city. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of drinking water in Kabul and investigate its hydrochemical characteristics. The study employed descriptive statistics, groundwater classification based on Electrical Conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Total Hardness (TH), major ions chemistry, and correlation matrices. The drinking water quality has been compared with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The outputs indicate that the maximum concentration for parameters exceeds the WHO threshold with different percentages. Based on EC classification, groundwater is mainly classified as permissible (about 90%). The TDS classification indicates that the majority of observed samples are admissible for drinking (about 88%). Also, most of the samples are classified as freshwater types (about 85%). The total hardness indicator of groundwater implies that about 90% of the water sample are very hard. A strong correlation exists between EC with TDS, Ca hardness with Ca, Alkalinity, and HCO3, total coliform and F. coliform, which indicates that they might have the same origin. The findings of the drinking water quality study demonstrate that the water quality in the Kabul Basin is poor, with several parameters exceeding WHO guidelines.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to appreciate from Afghanistan Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Corporation (AUWSSC) for providing drinking water quality data of the Kabul zone for the study.
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Noori, A.R., Singh, S.K. (2023). Drinking Water Quality Evaluation and Its Hydrochemical Aspects in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan. In: Al Khaddar, R., Singh, S.K., Kaushika, N.D., Tomar, R.K., Jain, S.K. (eds) Recent Developments in Energy and Environmental Engineering. TRACE 2022. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 333. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1388-6_5
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