Ground water Contamination Dueto Municipal Solid Waste Disposal – A GIS Based Study in Erode City Rajkumar N.1, Subramani T.2, Elango L.3 1Department of Civil Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, Erode. 2Department of Civil Engineering, Government College of Engineering, Salem. 3Department of Geology, Anna University, Chennai. raj20_civil@yahoo.com
Abstract Erode city, the head quarters of Erode District is located on the bank of Cauvery River in Tamil Nadu state. It lies between 11° 17’ N and 11° 23' N latitudes and 77° 40’ E and 77° 46' E longitudes with an approximate aerial extent of 120 km2. The city depends on Cauvery River for its drinking water supply. In addition to Cauvery River water, people in this region also depend on the groundwater resources for their domestic, agricultural and industrial needs. Urbanization and improper disposal of solid wastes lead to contamination of groundwater and surface water resources in this region. Municipal solid wastes of the city are presently disposed as open land fills at three distinct sites namely Vendipalayam, Vairapalayam and Semur. The leaches of the open dump yards directly contaminate the groundwater and surface water resources leading unsuitability of water for drinking at many places. Hence, a detailed study has been carried out using Geographical Information System (GIS) to understand the spatial variation of surface water and groundwater quality. About forty three groundwater samples and seven surface water samples were collected during February, 2009 from the study region, and the samples were analyzed for various physical and chemical parameters such as pH, Electrical Conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids, Alkalinity, Hardness, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl−, HCO3−, CO32−, SO42−, NO3− and F−. The concentrations of physical and chemical constituents in the water samples were compared with the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) and World Health Organization (WHO) standard to know the suitability of water for drinking. The study indicates that the water quality parameters exceed the permissible limits for drinking at many locations leading the water unsuitable for drinking. The spatial variation of groundwater quality parameters was also plotted using GIS. Top Keywords Spatial variation, groundwater contamination, Geographical Information System. Top |