Assessment of Physicochemical Characteristics and Thermophilic Bacterial Enumeration from Hot Water Springs of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Hot water springs are the geothermally heated and each thermal spring is found to be unique and different with respect to thermophilic bacterial diversity and various characteristics such as temperature, pH and chemistry of water. In the present study, pH and temperature of the six thermal springs assessed was found to vary from 6.5 to 8.4 and 36.5 to 94.6 °C respectively. Various physicochemical properties of these water samples evaluated were chloride (609.667–1857.667 mg/l), sulphate (12.667–44.667 mg/l), total hardness (34.833–131.600 mg/l), calcium hardness (29.00–125.00 mg/l), calcium carbonate hardness (58.00–272.33 mg/l) and magnesium content (3.85–26.15 mg/l). Evaluation of these six hot water springs was also carried out and thermophilic bacterial population was found to be highest (3.54 × 105 cfu/g) at Vashisht and minimum (0.54 × 105 cfu/g) at Kalath. In the present strudy most of the thermophilic bacterial isolates were found to belong to families Bacillaceae and Thermaceae.