Water pollution: Major issue in urban areas

Abstract

Like most of developing countries urbanization and industrialization have not gone in pace with environmental pollution, resulting in numerous problems arising from environmental pollution. This is specifically true about water bodies wherein various toxic solid wastes, effluents and emission are being discharged, resulting in an excessive amount of toxic and hazardous metals in local ground water. Due to discharge of untreated industrial effluents in the sewage channels, the ground water quality is deteriorated to great extent therefore availability of healthy, clean and good quality drinking water is a matter of great concern in the urban areas. The extent of ground water contamination was evaluated in the third biggest city of Pakistan well known as Manchester of Pakistan that is Faisalabad. Water samples were collected from the hand pumps installed within the 10 m circumference of the sewage channels. These samples were analysed for pH, Total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness, alkalinity, sulphate (SO4-2), chloride (Cl-), sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) by following the standard methods described by the American society for testing and materials (ASTM, 1993). Furthermore, heavy metals ions like cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc were determined by varian AA-1445 series atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AOAC, 1984). Results revealed that in most of the cases water samples were not fit for drinking purposes when compared with the standard guide lines available for drinking waters. Key words: Ground water contamination, drinking water, total dissolved solid, heavy metals.