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Research Article

Deciphering Groundwater Quality for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes – A Study in Lefunga Block of West Tripura District, Tripura, India

¹Department of Chemistry, Tripura University, Suryamaninagar-799022,Tripura, India

²Department of Geological Sciences, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India

*Corresponding Author:

S.K.Nag
Department of Geological Sciences
Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India
Tel: 03324572227
E-mail: sisirknag@gmail.com

Received date: November 29, 2016; Accepted date: December 23, 2016; Published date: December 31, 2016

Citation: Paul R, Das S, Nag SK, Singh MK (2016) Deciphering Groundwater Quality for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes – A Study in Lefunga Block of West Tripura District, Tripura, India. J Earth Sci Clim Change 7: 378. doi: 10.4172/2157-7617.1000378

Copyright: © 2016 Paul R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The aim of the present study is to assess the groundwater quality of Lefunga block, west Tripura district, Tripura, for irrigation and domestic purposes. Nine samples were collected from bore wells used for drinking and purposes. The samples were analyzed for major cations like calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron and anions like chloride, bi-carbonate and sulfate. Samples were also analyzed for arsenic and fluoride concentration. The important constituents that influences water quality for irrigation such as Electrical conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR), Magnesium Adsorption Ratio (MAR), Soluble Sodium Percentage (SSP) and Permeability Index (PI) were determined and compared with standard limits. The values of TDS range from 29.33 – 86.00 mg/L, SAR values range from 0.04 – 0.07, MAR values range from 33.56 – 53.68 and SSP range from 3.01 – 5.87. Results show that they all lie within the safe limits and thus largely suitable for irrigation purpose. Hence, the groundwater of this area is free from salinity hazard and has no adverse effect on soil properties. Furthermore, the water samples also fall within recommended limits and are found suitable for drinking purposes except one sample having high levels of iron and thus rendering it to be very poor for drinking purposes as per WQI classification.

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