Assessment of Groundwater Quality in Kodaganar River Basin, Tamilnadu, India

摘要

There are about 80 tanneries operating in and around Dindigul town in Kodaganar River Basin, Tamilnadu. The untreated effluents from the tanneries have considerably affected the quality of groundwater in the area. In order to assess the extent of groundwater deterioration in the area, detail analysis of groundwater quality data has been carried out. The concentration of cations such as calcium (Ca~(2+)), magnesium (Mg~(2+)), sodium (Na~+) and potassium (K~-) and anions such as bicarbonate (HCO_3~-), sulphate (SO_4~(2+) ), chloride (Cl~-) and nitrate (NO_3~-) in the groundwater have been studied in details. Apart from these constituents, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solid (TDS) and Total Hardness (TH) as CaCO3 also has been studied. The correlation of these constituents with the EC has been carried out. Few constituents such as (Na~+ +K~+), Ca~(2+), Mg~(2+), Cl~-, SO_4~(2+) and TH are also correlated with EC. The highest correlation is found between EC and chloride with a correlation coefficient of 0.99. Progressive reduction in correlation coefficients for Mg~(2+), TH, Ca~(2+), (Na~+ +K~+) and SO_4~(2+) are found as 0.85, 0.83, 0.80, 0.77 and 0.68 respectively. From the study, it is inferred that the quality of groundwater in the area under investigations are deteriorated mainly due to extensively use of sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate in leather industries.