Paper Details

Groundwater is the main source for drinking water all over the world. With the ever rising demand caused byagriculture and industry, the quality and quantity of groundwater has fallen down to a critical level. Regular water qualitymonitoring and management of water supply is emerging as a major engineering application today .Water qualityindex(WQI) is a special tool that represents the combined influence of individual water quality parameters on the overallquality of water, determining its suitability for human consumption. The Geographical Information System (GIS) alsoprovides a unique platform forwater quality assessment as it stores, analyzes and displays spatial data which aids in quickand effective decision making for the environmentalists and policy makers.The main purpose of this study was to monitor,evaluate and classify the water type based on WQI and GIS mapping to assess the drinking wate r quality in BukkapatnamMandal, Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh which belongs to the rain-shadow region of Rayalseema belt. The watersamples were collected from the bore-well and the results of the physico-chemical analysis were compared with the drinkingwater standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The range ofphysiochemical parameters observed for groundwater were pH (7.44 to 8.27), Total Dissolved Solids (185 to 1570 mg/l),Total Alkalinity(100.58 to 684.80 mg/l), Total hardness(145 to 990 mg/l), Electrical conductivity(288.6 to2949.2µS ),fluoride (1.45 to 7.21 mg/l), nitrate (0.72 to190.79 mg/l),sulphate (11.30 to 438.39mg/l), chloride( 9.02 to 723.93 mg/l),phosphate(0 to 7.88 mg/l ), sodium(19.93 to 318.79 mg/l), potassium (0.39 to 11.49 mg/l), calcium(4 to 240.03mg/l ),magnesium(11.86 to 61.12 mg/l ), iron(0.023 to 0.125 ppm) during this study. The latitude and longitude of the samplinglocation were taken to develop geospatial maps on GIS plat form. Water quality index was calculated and the result revealedthat 92% of the groundwater in the region was unfit for drinking purpose without appropriate pre-treatment.

K.M.Ganesh, G Suryanarayana, Chelli Janardhana, “Groundwater quality assessment by WQI and GIS tools in the villages of Bukkapatnam Mandal, Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh (India)”, International Journal of Advance Engineering and Research Development (IJAERD), Vol. 2, Issue 4, pp. 537-544, April 2015.