Assessment of Open well Water Quality around Puttalam District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study focused upon the determination of physicochemical parameters, in drinking water samples of different areas in Puttalam district, Sri Lanka. The purpose was to evaluate the quality of water from these bases. Twenty well water samples were collected from different areas of Puttalam district and analyzed for physiochemical parameters including BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand), COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), Total Hardness, Chloride content, TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) and pH. Some Anions (NO3 − and Cl− ) were analyzed for the collected samples. All twenty samples were analyzed separately and were compared with the water quality standard prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO). It was found that the mean pH values were generally almost the same for the investigated drinking water samples ranged from 6.20 ± 0.0707-7.26 ± 0.007. The well water samples were shown wide variations in other physicochemical parameters. The data showed variations of the investigated parameters in samples are BOD: 1.28 ± 0.0070-5.08 ± 0.0141 ppm, COD: 2.88± 0.0212-24.96 ± 0.070 ppm, Total hardness: 20 ± 1.41241-800 ± 1.414 ppm, Chloride content: 35.45 ± 0.9404-602.65 ± 0.169 ppm, nitrate, 0.0010 ± 0.03-78.4965 ± 0.67 ppm, TDS: 100 ± 2.8284-2000 ± 2.828 mg/L. The concentrations of most of the investigated parameters in the selected drinking water samples from different areas in Puttalam district were not within the permissible limits of the World Health Organization drinking water quality guidelines.