ASSESSMENT OF DRINKING WATER QUALITY IN PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN

E. Inamullah, A. Alam

Abstract: Drinking water contamination is one of the core issues in many developing countries and of the challenges confronting scientists and planners. Need of water quality assessment in different parts of the country is thus imperative to analyze state of the water consumed for different purposes especially for drinking purpose. The present study took into account water quality assessment of 32 locations inside Peshawar. Groundwater samples were collected both from tube wells as well as from household ends and subjected to physical, chemical and bacteriological analysis as well as presence of heavy metals, to check their suitability for drinking purpose. Results revealed that physical and chemical characteristics of 96.87% samples were within the permissible limits. However, 84.35% of the samples collected from household ends were contaminated with coliform bacteria and could not be considered safe for human consumption. 31.2% of the samples collected directly from tube wells also showed suspicious results. Faulty distribution and storage infrastructure and their lack of maintenance are concluded main reasons behind drinking water contamination in Peshawar.

Keywords: atomic absorption spectrophotometry; bacteriological analysis; hard water; Peshawar KPK; water contamination

Date published: 2019-04-19