Bapuji Educational Association ®

Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davangere–577 004

Department of Civil Engineering

EFFECT OF POLLUTED DRINKING WATER AND

AWARENESS ABOUT WATER BORN DISEASES

Introduction
Water is a vital commodity and is essential to the natural environment. We not only rely on it for
drinking but also for its use in industrial processes, cooking, cleaning and the growing of our
food. There are many sources of water pollution the major sources of water pollution being;
runoff, agricultural pollution, urban storm water, organic matter, toxic waste, and thermal
pollution. These types of pollution tend to be area specific (for example agricultural runoff will
on the whole come from rural areas as that’s were most farms are situated) although this is not
always the case, any type of water pollution could occur in any area rural or urban. Rural and
urban areas both have many contrasting sources of pollution, all of which will have varying
affects on the surrounding environment and its habitants.

What Is Water Pollution?

Water pollution occurs when harmful substances often chemicals or microorganisms—

contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water, degrading drinking
water quality and rendering it toxic to humans or the environment.

Categories of Water Pollution

Groundwater

When rain falls and seeps deep into the earth, filling the cracks, crevices, and porous spaces of an
aquifer (basically an underground storehouse of water), it becomes groundwater—one of our
least visible but most important natural resources. Most of the villages in India rely on
groundwater, pumped to the earth’s surface, for drinking water. For some people in rural areas,
it’s their only freshwater source. Groundwater gets polluted when contaminants from pesticides
and fertilizers to waste leached from landfills and septic systems make their way into an aquifer,
 Bapuji Educational Association ®
Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davangere–577 004
Department of Civil Engineering

rendering it unsafe for human use. Ridding groundwater of contaminants can be difficult to
impossible, as well as costly. Once polluted, an aquifer may be unusable for decades, or even
thousands of years. Groundwater can also spread contamination far from the original polluting
source as it seeps into streams, lakes, and oceans.

Surface water

Covering about 70 percent of the earth, surface water is what fills our oceans, lakes, rivers, and
all those other blue bits on the world map. Surface water from freshwater sources (that is, from
sources other than the ocean) accounts for more than 60 percent of the water delivered to homes.
According to the most recent surveys on national water quality, nearly half of our rivers and
streams and more than one-third of our lakes are polluted and unfit for drinking. Nutrient
pollution, which includes nitrates and phosphates, is the leading type of contamination in these
freshwater sources. While plants and animals need these nutrients to grow, they have become
a major pollutant due to farm waste and fertilizer runoff. Municipal and industrial waste
discharges contribute their fair share of toxins as well. There’s also all the random junk that
industry and individuals dump directly into waterways.

Probable Reasons for Poor Groundwater Quality in Rural Areas

 The most common water quality problem in rural water supply is bacterial contamination
from septic tanks which are often used in rural areas.
 Pollutants also move into groundwater through
o Macro pores
o Root system
o Animal burrows
o Abandoned wells.
 Closer the contaminant source is to the water well, more the chances of pollution.
 Bapuji Educational Association ®
Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davangere–577 004
Department of Civil Engineering

 Greater the distance between source of contamination and groundwater abstraction structure,
the more likely that natural processes like Oxidation, Biological degradation and Absorption
reduce the impacts of contamination.
 Septic tanks that do not have sewage treatment systems.
 Arrangements for safe disposal of solid waste, rain water, and domestic liquid are lacking in
many villages.
 Effluent (overflow and leakage) from septic tank can percolate (seep) down to the
groundwater.

Water Related Diseases Due to Microbial Contamination

Water-borne diseases are Viral, Bacterial, Protozoa and Thread worm

 Viral diseases are infective hepatitis and polio-myclitis.

 Bacterial diseases are diarrhea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid.
 Protozoa diseases are amoebiasis, giardiasis, helminthic i.e. round worm and thread worm.
 Mathemoglobinemia or blue baby syndrome, an illness affecting infants, can be caused by
drinking water that is high in Nitrate.

REMEDIAL MEASURES

1. If the groundwater contamination is very high, water supply must be abandoned as a source
of drinking water.
2. In other cases, groundwater can be treated and supplied to public.
3. Prevent the contaminated water to migrate.
4. Pumping the water, treating it and returning it to the aquifer.
5. Allowing the contaminant to reduce naturally following the implementation of appropriate
source control.
6. In the villages where safe drinking water is provided under rural water supply schemes, it is
essential that water pipes should not go through sewage or should not be submerged in
 Bapuji Educational Association ®
Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davangere–577 004
Department of Civil Engineering

sewage locations. Since in the villages, sewage channels are open, there is the possibility of
sewage mixing with pipe water.
7. Though it is a monumental task, we wish someday underground drainage system should
come to all the rural areas which reduce the contamination of groundwater from organic
particles.
8. In rural areas, at present, rural water supply schemes are being implemented under Water and
Sanitation. The objective of the scheme is to provide safe drinking water providing Tap
connections and ensure all the households construct latrines so as to avoid open defecation.
But large number of villages still depends on dug well or bore well with hand pump for
drinking water. Also, open defecation is practiced in many villages and few villages adopt
septic latrines. There is big drive in the rural areas to have latrines in each house. This
practice also leads to groundwater contamination.
9. Efforts should be made to reduce the water contamination by adopting better methods of
sanitation. Disposal of drainage water, sewage disposal, distance criteria maintained between
sanitation and drinking water source and abstraction. Periodic monitoring of microbial
groundwater quality and sanitation risk inspection data for water source (dug wells and bore
wells) questionnaire as prescribed by WHO in their water quality reports.