Controlling factors and mechanism of groundwater quality variation in semiarid region of South India: an approach of water quality index (WQI) and health risk assessment (HRA)

The study region comprises fractured granitic, basaltic and lateritic aquifer system constituted by Precambrian rocks. Groundwater is the primary source for drinking and household needs. Its quality is a big issue in the three aquifers, which are mostly of human health concern. Many developing regions suffer from lack of safe drinking water, thereby health problems arise in many parts of the regions, and Telangana state is one of them. For this reason, 194 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for fluoride, nitrate, chloride and other physicochemical parameters. The concentrations of fluoride (F−), nitrate (NO3−), magnesium (Mg2+), total dissolved solids and total hardness are above the acceptable limits for drinking purposes, prescribed by the World Health Organization. The higher concentrations of fluoride and nitrate in drinking water cause health hazards, and above 50% of the groundwater samples are not suitable for drinking purposes with respect to fluoride and nitrate. Weathering of rocks and dissolution of fluoride-bearing minerals can be a cause for higher fluoride concentrations, while anthropogenic sources are one of the major reasons for higher nitrate concentrations in the study area. Groundwater suitability for irrigation suggests that more than 90% of the groundwater sampling locations are suitable for irrigation. In addition, health risk assessments were evaluated by using the United States Environmental Protection Agency model, to determine the non-carcinogenic risk of fluoride and nitrate in drinking water for adults (females and males) and children. The ranges of hazard index in all sampling locations are varied from 0.133 to 8.870 for males, 0.146 to 10.293 for females and 0.419 to 29.487 for children, respectively. The health risk assessment results indicated that children were more exposed to health risk, due to the intake of high contaminated drinking water with respective of nitrate and fluoride in the study region.