The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country

Many developing and threshold countries rely on shallow groundwater wells for their water supply whilst pit latrines are used for sanitation. We employed a unified strategy involving satellite images and environmental monitoring of 16 physico-chemical and microbiological water quality parameters to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gil, José F., Rajal, Veronica B., Cruz, Mercedes Cecilia, Cacciabue, Dolores Gutiérrez, Gamboni, Oscar, Vicente, María Soledad, Wuertz, Stefan, Gonzo, Elio Emilio
Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/97704
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18158
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-97704
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-977042020-03-07T11:43:35Z The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country Gil, José F. Rajal, Veronica B. Cruz, Mercedes Cecilia Cacciabue, Dolores Gutiérrez Gamboni, Oscar Vicente, María Soledad Wuertz, Stefan Gonzo, Elio Emilio School of Civil and Environmental Engineering DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering Many developing and threshold countries rely on shallow groundwater wells for their water supply whilst pit latrines are used for sanitation. We employed a unified strategy involving satellite images and environmental monitoring of 16 physico-chemical and microbiological water quality parameters to identify significant land uses that can lead to unacceptable deterioration of source water, in a region with a subtropical climate and seasonally restricted torrential rainfall in Northern Argentina. Agricultural and non-agricultural sources of nitrate were illustrated in satellite images and used to assess the organic load discharged. The estimated human organic load per year was 28.5 BOD5 tons and the N load was 7.5 tons, while for poultry farms it was 9940-BOD5 tons and 1037-N tons, respectively. Concentrations of nitrates and organics were significantly different between seasons in well water (p values of 0.026 and 0.039, respectively). The onset of the wet season had an extraordinarily negative impact on well water due in part to the high permeability of soils made up of fine gravels and coarse sand. Discriminant analysis showed that land uses had a pronounced seasonal influence on nitrates and introduced additional microbial contamination, causing nitrification and denitrification in shallow groundwater. P-well was highly impacted by a poultry farm while S-well was affected by anthropogenic pollution and background load, as revealed by Principal Component Analysis. The application of microbial source tracking techniques is recommended to corroborate local sources of human versus animal origin. 2013-12-06T08:27:01Z 2019-12-06T19:45:40Z 2013-12-06T08:27:01Z 2019-12-06T19:45:40Z 2012 2012 Journal Article Cruz, M. C., Cacciabue, D. G., Gil, J. F., Gamboni, O., Vicente, M. S., Wuertz, S., et al. (2012). The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country. Journal of environmental monitoring, 14(9), 2338-2349. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/97704 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18158 10.1039/c2em30322a en Journal of environmental monitoring
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering
Gil, José F.
Rajal, Veronica B.
Cruz, Mercedes Cecilia
Cacciabue, Dolores Gutiérrez
Gamboni, Oscar
Vicente, María Soledad
Wuertz, Stefan
Gonzo, Elio Emilio
The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
description Many developing and threshold countries rely on shallow groundwater wells for their water supply whilst pit latrines are used for sanitation. We employed a unified strategy involving satellite images and environmental monitoring of 16 physico-chemical and microbiological water quality parameters to identify significant land uses that can lead to unacceptable deterioration of source water, in a region with a subtropical climate and seasonally restricted torrential rainfall in Northern Argentina. Agricultural and non-agricultural sources of nitrate were illustrated in satellite images and used to assess the organic load discharged. The estimated human organic load per year was 28.5 BOD5 tons and the N load was 7.5 tons, while for poultry farms it was 9940-BOD5 tons and 1037-N tons, respectively. Concentrations of nitrates and organics were significantly different between seasons in well water (p values of 0.026 and 0.039, respectively). The onset of the wet season had an extraordinarily negative impact on well water due in part to the high permeability of soils made up of fine gravels and coarse sand. Discriminant analysis showed that land uses had a pronounced seasonal influence on nitrates and introduced additional microbial contamination, causing nitrification and denitrification in shallow groundwater. P-well was highly impacted by a poultry farm while S-well was affected by anthropogenic pollution and background load, as revealed by Principal Component Analysis. The application of microbial source tracking techniques is recommended to corroborate local sources of human versus animal origin.
author2 School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
author_facet School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Gil, José F.
Rajal, Veronica B.
Cruz, Mercedes Cecilia
Cacciabue, Dolores Gutiérrez
Gamboni, Oscar
Vicente, María Soledad
Wuertz, Stefan
Gonzo, Elio Emilio
format Article
author Gil, José F.
Rajal, Veronica B.
Cruz, Mercedes Cecilia
Cacciabue, Dolores Gutiérrez
Gamboni, Oscar
Vicente, María Soledad
Wuertz, Stefan
Gonzo, Elio Emilio
author_sort Gil, José F.
title The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
title_short The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
title_full The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
title_fullStr The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
title_full_unstemmed The impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
title_sort impact of point source pollution on shallow groundwater used for human consumption in a threshold country
publishDate 2013
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/97704
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18158
_version_ 1681046574499627008