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Causes, Effects & Remedies - Groundwater As Calamity || References

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Groundwater Arsenic contamination in West Bengal-India (20 years study )

Reported work done by SOES

Groundwater arsenic contamination status of Nadia district, one of the nine arsenic affected districts of West Bengal-India

Location and Demography
The geographical extent of the district Nadia lies with a latitude of 22041/ 23// N and longitude of 72051/ 24//E which covers an area of about 3927 Sq. Kms. The district is situated on both the eastern and western side of the Hoogly (Ganga) river as it flows in its southward journey to the sea. The district consists of 17 blocks. Each block has several gram panchayets (GP, cluster of villages) and each GP contains several villages. Officially there are 1250 inhabited villages in Nadia district. Till date we have surveyed 767 villages/wards from this district. The district has 46,04,827 inhabitants (23,66,853 are males and 22,37,974 females).

Arsenic contamination status in groundwater of Nadia district

To date, we have analyzed 28794 hand tubewell water samples from 767 villages / wards 143 GP’s/ Municipal area of all 17 blocks of Nadia. Table I shows the distribution of arsenic in tubewell water from total Nadia district.  Figure I shows the groundwater arsenic situation in each block of Nadia with Pie-diagram distribution. Arsenic concentration above 10 µg/L was observed in 14750 (51.2%) hand tubewells and above 50 µg/L in 4940 (17.2%) and 525 (1.8%) of the tubewells had arsenic concentrations above 300µg/L.  649, 441 and 117 villages contained arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L respectively and in 17, 17 and 14 blocks contained arsenic above 10, 50 and 300 µg/L respectively. From the above analysis, it appears that the groundwater of entire 17 blocks contains arsenic above WHO guideline value of arsenic in drinking water (10 µg/L) and Indian Standard value (50 µg/L). Arsenic level above 1000µg/L was found in 13 tubewells; the maximum arsenic contamination level found in this district was 3200µg/L in the Tehatta-I block 

Groundwater arsenic situation and sufferings of people in Nadia district

Block
Total samples analysed 
Distribution of total samples in different arsenic concentration (mg/L) ranges
%of Samples with As >10mg/L
% of Samples with As >50mg/L
Max. conc. mg/L (samples with As >1000mg/L

≤3

4-10

11-50

51-100

101-200

201-300

300-500

501-1000
Chakdah
2626
893
266
887
301
186
44
44
5
55.9
22.1
890
Chapra
604
276
71
191
48
13
2
3
42.5
10.9
310
Hanskhali
902
166
235
465
28
8
55.5
4.0
148
Haringhata
1157
384
97
438
140
42
23
17
16
58.4
20.6
865
Kaliganj
1667
576
150
578
163
136
37
20
7
56.4
21.8
1000
Karimpur I
5061
1792
407
1470
602
427
213
98
44
56.6
27.5
1363 (8)
Karimpur II
1534
508
145
476
142
131
75
40
15
57.4
26.4
1180 (2)
Krishnaganj
917
371
89
414
27
12
3
1
49.8
4.7
594
Krishnanagar I
1091
622
72
357
30
8
2
36.4
3.7
229
Krishnanagar II
949
649
125
156
17
2
18.4
2.0
104
Nabadwip
651
219
75
252
59
38
5
2
1
54.8
16.1
980
Nakashipara
656
113
339
115
49
32
8
82.8
31.1
400
Ranaghat I
1310
511
76
691
20
7
3
2
55.2
2.4
566
Ranaghat II
1401
476
114
656
91
48
8
7
1
57.9
11.1
510
Santipur
1133
300
150
543
95
33
8
3
1
60.3
12.4
524
Tehatta I
4890
2423
410
1274
231
265
149
90
45
42.1
16.0
3200 (3)
Tehatta II
2245
1152
131
623
156
115
26
28
14
42.9
15.1
950
Total
28794
11431
2613
9810
2265
1520
630
360
152
51.2
17.2
3200 (13)

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