Arsenic contamination of groundwater in Ghazni and Maidan Wardak provinces, Afghanistan

摘要

In Afghanistan, arsenic (As) and fluoride (F~-) contamination are an issue of current drinking water supply systems where users have been using groundwater sources. Arsenic contamination is the major environmental health management concerns especially in Ghazni and Maidan Wardak provinces in WASH sector. Increasing human activities and haphazard urbanization have modified the cycle of heavy metal, non-metal and metalloids. The As contaminated groundwater used for drinking can cause adverse effect of human health of study area. The water quality study with 746 samples from Drinking Water Points (DWPs) have been carried in Khwaja Omari district and center of Ghazni province and Jaghato district of Maydan Wardak province results show that 61% of drinking water points samples exceeded the value of the WHO guideline of 10 μg/L of As, and 38% of analyzed water samples exceeded the Afghanistan Drinking Water Quality Standard (DWQS) of 50 μg/L of As.