The quality of surface water and groundwater has deteriorated as a result of increased industrialization,
urbanization and agricultural practices during the last few decades. Contaminated groundwater can
cause major health problems in humans, such as typhoid and other infections. Similar in the case of
Rabigh Governorate, the groundwater is one of the main sources of water for domestic and agriculture
purposes in its villages situated in western Saudi Arabia. Many factories have been established in
Rabigh region in recent years and day to day input of numerous untreated/partially treated water
resulting in major environmental problems, one of which is the low quality of groundwater causing
serious environmental and health issues. The presented study discusses the ground water as the main
available and usable source in extremely climatic condition of arid area of Saudi Arabia. The article
proceeds with the brief introduction of ground water, its contamination sources and health hazards.
For this, 13 water samples were from the randomly selected wells in Rabigh Governorate for quality
examine. Water quality index analysis was conducted, which is a useful technique for fast assessment
of the quality of any water resource. Various physical and chemical parameters of water quality index
such as pH, temperature, conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids
(TSS), total solids (TS), dissolved oxygen (DO), arsenic and E. coli are measured and analyzed. The
values of all groundwater samples are compared with the standard WHO permissible values. The
water quality of the wells were classified into “good, poor, very poor and unsuitable for drinking”
based on physico-chemical parameters. According to the observed study, water quality range (WQR)
for 5 samples (38% of the samples) are of poor quality, 3 samples (23%) are recorded with a very poor
quality and 5 samples (38%) are not suitable for drinking purpose due to presence of high conductivity
and TDS values. After taking into consideration the presence of E. coli in 31% of the samples (n = 4),
about 62% of the samples (n = 8) are not suitable for drinking purpose, only 23% (n = 3) samples are
of poor quality and 15% (n = 2) are very poor quality. The findings reveal a decrease in water quality
(unsuitable for drinking purpose) in 8 out of 13 collected samples. It is believed that waste and industrial
activities have an impact on groundwater quality in the study area, however, a nationwide investigation
should be conducted to validate this finding.
Assessment of Water Quality Index (WQI) for Drinking Purpose of Groundwater in Lower Varahanadhi subbasin, Tamilnadu, India
