A comparative study of underground water arsenic contamination and suffering of people in Flood Plain with Deltaic reason of Bangladesh

Abstract

The people were drinking arsenic-contaminated underground water in Bangladesh. We had analyzed 33,092 hand tube-well water samples, collected from all four geomorphological areas (i.e., from all 64 districts) in Bangladesh and found arsenic in 60 districts that were above the WHO recommended value in drinking water (10 μg/L) and in 50 districts that were above maximum permissible limit, 50 μg/L. In this paper, I have reported the magnitude of arsenic contamination in the tubewell water samples that were collected from two districts of Bangladesh, one from Flood Plain, named Chandpur, and another one from Deltaic region, named Madaripur. It describes the analytical report of arsenic concentrations in underground drinking water and biological samples, and people suffering from arsenic toxicity in these two districts. In the Madaripur district, 19.62% of the total tubewell water samples (n=2,309) contained arsenic concentrations that were below WHO recommended value (10 μg/L) and safe to drink, and 80.38% and 59.59% of the tubewells contained levels arsenic that were above 10 μg/L and 50 μg/L, respectively. In Chandpur district (n=1,165 tubewell water samples), these values are 4.12, 95.88, and 92.79%, respectively. Of the samples in Madaripur, the percentage of water samples with arsenic are 26.94, 12.68, 3.29. 0.91, and 0.22% in the ranges 100-299, 300-499, 500-699, 700-1,000, and above 1,000 μg As/L, respectively. In Chandpur district, these values are 57.86, 25.15, 4.81, 1.80, and 0.43%, respectively.