An Apportionment of Arsenic and Iron Contamination of Tube-well Groundwater with Possible Health Risk in Bangladesh

Abstract

Underground tube-well water is one of the most important sources of pure drinking water in the world. Drinking water contamination with heavy metals (iron and arsenic) is a burning question nowadays for public health and also environmental perspectives. Our present task is for determination of iron and arsenic concentration in ground tube-well with possible health risk in Bangladesh. The water samples were collected from Tangail district of Bangladesh during January 2017. Iron and arsenic concentration were analyzed by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Iron concentration ranged from 4.483 to 20.698 mg/l where arsenic concentration was obtained from <0.001 to 0.01969 mg/l in the studied samples. Arsenic concentration for most of the samples and all iron samples were higher than the maximum permissible level of World Health Organization due to drinking these water. Iron is a heavy metal may cause serious health risk to study area people. In Bangladesh, permissible limit of iron is 0.3-1.0 mg/l, whereas WHO standard level is 0.3 mg/l. All the samples were exceeded the standard levels of iron. A range of 20 to 60 times higher iron concentration reported than permissible limits in tube-well water of the study area. These higher iron concentrations found in the study area may be harmful to those people who are consuming the water from these sources on regular basis and they may pose a high health risk. Thus, to overcome this problem, the consumers should not drink groundwater containing higher amounts of iron, and they should find other sources or replace the tube-well or treat the water for drinking and other domestic and household purposes.