Qualitative assessment of ground water using the water quality index from a part of Western Uttar Pradesh, North India

Groundwater is the world's considerable resource for providing drinking water to millions of people worldwide. It is essential to assess groundwater quality for drinking water purposes due to the increasing trend of contaminants in this water. Therefore, this research has been carried out to study groundwater quality for 22 different village's well locations of Barauli Ahir block rural areas of Agra region, India, using the water quality indexing method. A total of sixty-six groundwater samples from identified areas were collected, selected as polluted ones. Twelve physico-chemical parameters were estimated to assess its eligibility for drinking purposes based on the drinking water quality index (WQI). The result shows that the groundwater was brackish, and the total dissolved solids ranged from 340-1,503 mg/L. The alkalinity varied between 142-531 mg/L, considered for the concentration of bicarbonate ions. The range of fluoride concentration is from 0.33 to 4.88; more than 45.4% of samples have a concentration of fluoride more significant than the WHO acceptable limit, that is, 1.5 mg/L. The water quality of drinking purposes was plotted in the Piper trilinear diagram, revealing that the water type at this study area was categorized as Na+/HCO3- or Na+/Cl- type followed by Ca+/HCO3- type. Schoeller's diagram reveals that the concentration of magnesium and sulfate ions was least present among all cations and anions, which reveals that the hardness in water is low. The maximum and minimum value of the water quality index was found to be 233.16 and 49.80. The result of WQI showed that 41% of collected samples lie in the unfit water category, 45.5% of samples lie in the very poor category, 9% of samples lie in the poor category, and 4.5% of samples lie in the excellent category. This water quality index proved that it is necessary to treat water before using and protect the area from health hazards at Barauli Ahir block.