Water Quality Assessment of Groundwater Resources in Qaleeh Shahin Plain Based on Cd and HEI

Aims The chemical elements in water resources, especially groundwater, can affect thewater consumption purposes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the status of the overallpollution level of ground water of Qaleeh Shahin plain with respect to heavy metals by Cd andHEI methods.Instrument & Methods This cross-sectional semi-experimental study was conductedin Sarpol-e Zahab township in Kermanshah Province, west of Iran. For this purpose, 20groundwater wells were chosen randomly. The samples were filtered (0.45μm), stored inpolyethylene bottles and were acidified at a pH lower than 2 by adding concentrated HNO3in order to avoid metal adsorption onto the inner bottle walls. Element concentrations weredetermined using ICP-OES. The correlation between the metals in the different seasons,between the indices values and concentration of metals and between different indices valueswas assessed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient.Findings There were no significant correlations between the concentrations of the elementsin 2 seasons except between As and Cd in winter (r=0.544; p<0.05). Only the concentration ofPb had significant correlations with Cd (r=0.937; p=0.0001) and HEI (r=0.997; p=0.0001) valuesin winter and with Cd (r=0.997; p=0.0001) and HEI (r=0.810; p=0.0001) values in summer,which indicated Pb as the main contributory pollutant. The correlation between Cd and HEI wassignificant in winter (r=0.943; p=0.0001) and was significant in summer (r=0.818; p=0.0001).Conclusion The water resources of Qaleeh Shahin plain, Kermanshah Province, Iran, are notpolluted by heavy metals and are suitable for drinking.

کلیدواژه ها:

Metals ، Heavy ، Water Pollution ، Chemical ، Groundwater ، Iran