Abstract
AbstractDrinking water quality of surface and underground water within 1.34 km from a waste landfill site in Kumasi, Ghana was investigated. Physico‐chemical properties and heavy metal concentrations were analysed to determine water quality and pollution indices. It was found that turbidity of 83% of hand dug wells, 50% of the streams and 33% of boreholes were higher than World Health Organisation (WHO) standards for drinking water. Water quality index (WQI) showed that 25% of the water sources are of excellent quality, while 50%, 15% and 5% are good quality, poor quality, very poor quality and unsuitable for drinking, respectively. Heavy metal pollution index (HPI) indicated that the water sources were above the critical limit for drinking water (HPI > 100). Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed 75.30% and 70.88% of the total variance for the physico‐chemical parameters and heavy metals, respectively. The findings concluded that cadmium concentrations in all the water sources were extremely higher (0.0122–0.1090 mg/L) than WHO limit (0.003 mg/L), rendering them unwholesome for consumption.
Highlights
The two most important sources of water are ground and surface
Warm water conditions promote the growth of nuisance microorganisms, which could lead to the development of unpleasant odour and taste in drinking water (Pangborn and Bertolero, 1972)
Out of the 12 boreholes, the average turbidity values of four samples were remarkably higher than the World Health Organisation (WHO) limits for drinking water quality, whilst 83.33 % and 50.00 % of the hand dug well and surface water sources, respectively, were higher than the WHO limits
Summary
The two most important sources of water are ground and surface. The wide range of water usage as a key resource in our daily activities goes through domestic, agricultural, transportation, industrial and health care (Winter et al, 1998). Geotechnical properties of landfill waste can differ significantly from one geographical location to another due to different waste types and compositions, climate conditions, site hydrology (Talalaj and Biedka, 2016; Feng et al, 2017) These factors among others such as leachate interaction with the environment and precipitation may affect the characteristic properties of leachate from waste landfills (Singh et al, 2016; Rana et al, 2018). The results from this study would provide a framework of drinking water quality near engineered waste landfilling sites, for communities in Ghana as well as other developing countries with identical geotechnical properties where the practice is common. The study will use statistical methods to identify the various possible sources that affect water quality and the influence of landfill distance on water quality
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