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Geochemical Characterization and Controlling Factors of Chemical Composition of Spring Water in a Part of Eastern Himalaya

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Journal of the Geological Society of India

Abstract

This paper focuses on the suitability of spring water for drinking and irrigation purposes in a part of eastern Himalaya, south Sikkim. There are many anthropogenic and geogenic factors contributing as a source of major cations and anions in the spring water. The spring water chemistry show a variation in EC, pH, TDS, Temperature, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Fe2+, Pb, Mn, Cu, HCO3-, Cl-, PO43-, NO3-, F- and SO42-. Mainly two types of water quality indexing has been used, one for suitability of spring water for drinking purposes and the other for irrigation purposes. For drinking purposes, Piper diagram used for determination of water type, water quality index (WQI) for quality monitoring and saturation index for mineral dissolution in water. % Na, RSC (Residual Sodium Carbon) and SAR (sodium absorption ratio) have been used for irrigation suitability. Piper diagram shows that CaHCO3 type of water was dominant in the study area. The WQI depicted excellent category and SAR, percent sodium and RSC (Residual Sodium Carbon) depict excellent, good and permissible category for irrigation purposes. Principle component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the major influencing factor responsible for the variability in the parameters analysed of spring water.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110 067, India

    Chandrashekhar Azad Vishwakarma, Ratan Sen, Priyadarshini Singh, Vikas Rena & Saumitra Mukherjee

  2. The M. S. University of Baroda, Pratapgunj, Vadodara, 390 002, India

    Neha Singh

  3. School of Environment and Sustainable Development, central university of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, 382 030, India

    Kumari Rina

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  1. Chandrashekhar Azad Vishwakarma
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Vishwakarma, C.A., Sen, R., Singh, N. et al. Geochemical Characterization and Controlling Factors of Chemical Composition of Spring Water in a Part of Eastern Himalaya. J Geol Soc India 92, 753–763 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-018-1098-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-018-1098-0

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