Physicochemical Assessment of Water Quality and Its Suitability for Drinking Purpose in Different Healthcare Institution in Khulna City Corporation, Bangladesh

In this study, the hydrochemical characteristics and suitability assessment of drinking

water in different Healthcare Institutionsin Khulna City Corporation, Bangladesh has been

evaluated based on different indices for drinking purpose. Water samples were collected

from 21 institution and analyzed for major cations and anions. Physico-chemical

parameters were assessed according to the methods of APHA. The coordinates in terms of

latitude and longitude of the sampling locations were recorded with the help of global

positioning system. The results obtained from physico-chemical analysis of water samples

were within WHO standards except EC, TDS and Cl- in few institutions water samples.

Exclude levels for EC - 67%, TDS - 43% and Cl-- 38%. Which indicate that salt

enrichment in the water of Khulna healthcare Institutions. Correlation matrix recognizes

strong and moderate correlation among the most water quality parameter. Another

statistical analysis named cluster analysis showed good results rendering three different

groups of similarity within the parameters and the sampling station. Gibbs diagram for

anions and cations shows that nearly 33 % of the samples water fall under precipitation

dominance field and 67 % of the samples follow the rock–water dominance field;

accordingly, 62 % of the samples fall under rock–water dominance, 7% evaporation

dominance fields and 33% samples follow the precipitation dominance respectively. By

piper diagram it was evaluated that HW15, HW8, HW18, HW13, HW19, HW6, HW4,

HW7, HW16, HW17, HW5 institutional samples water fall under the Na–Cl type, HW21

institution sample fall under the Mg-HCO3- region and other samples under mixed region.

In order to develop WQI the samples were subjected to a comprehensive analysis of 14

parameters such as: Temperature, DO, PH, Electrical Conductivity, Total hardness, TDS,

bicarbonate (HCO3-), chloride (Cl-), sulphate (SO42-), Nitrate (NO3-), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), Potassium (K+) and Sodium (Na+) were analyzed. The computed values of WQI ranged from 29.52 to 102.37, and the average value was 62.73. Among all

the groundwater samples, 33% of samples were “excellent”, 62% were “good”, and 5%

were “poor”. So, more than 95% of the institution falls in excellent to good categories. In

few numbers of institution water samples fall in the category of poor water which need

treatment before consumption.

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