Vol.:(0123456789)
1 3
Modeling Earth Systems and Environment (2018) 4:841–852
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-018-0443-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Evaluation of groundwater quality, Peddavagu in Central Telangana
(PCT), South India: an insight of controlling factors of fluoride
enrichment
Narsimha Adimalla
1,2
· Sathish Kumar Vasa
3
· Peiyue Li
1,2
Received: 9 January 2018 / Accepted: 26 March 2018 / Published online: 30 March 2018
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
Groundwater is one of the most valuable natural resources in Peddavagu in Central Telangana (PCT). Most of the PCT region
population rely on groundwater for especially drinking purposes. For this reason a thirty-five groundwater samples were
collected, analysed various physico-chemical parameters including F
−
. The range of fluoride concentration 0.6–3.6 mg/L in
Zone-I and 1–3.5 mg/L in Zone-II. pH of groundwater is from 7.1 to 8.4 and 7.3 to 8.3 in Zone-I and Zone-II respectively.
Fluoride shows a significant correlation with pH, HCO
3
−
, and Na
+
, which may leads to enhance the fluoride content in
groundwater. Insignificant relationship between F
−
and NO
3
−
suggests no influence of anthropogenic sources for F
−
content in
groundwater. The results of the relationship between Na
+
+K
+
versus total cations (TZ
+
), Ca
2+
+Mg
2+
versus HCO
3
−
+SO
4
2−
describes silicate weathering is prevails in the groundwater chemistry. The dominance of the water types Na
+
-HCO
3
−
>
Ca
2+
-Mg
2+
-HCO
3
−
> Ca
2+
-Mg
2+
-SO
4
2−
Cl
−
>Na
+
-Cl
−
. Gibbs plot employed to differentiate the controlling mechanisms of
hydrochemistry, which showed that rock water interaction is the governing process. Na
+
-HCO
3
−
, alkaline nature water and
rock water interaction can leads to elevate fluoride content into groundwater in the study region. Thereby, most of the region
people suffer with fluorosis problem, due to intake of higher fluoride content of drinking water. Therefore, the study region
population may avoid such untreated water for drinking and adopt a suitable method to reduce the fluorosis problem in future.
Keywords Groundwater chemistry · Fluoride enrichment · Gibbs · Peddavagu · Telangana
Introduction
As we know that the groundwater is primary resource for
drinking, irrigation and other usages in all over the world.
Developing countries like India and China groundwater plays
crucial role, especially, in arid and semi-arid regions, where
inadequate of surface water, most of the region population
depends on groundwater for daily needs, particularly drinking
purposes. Conversely, contamination of groundwater prevails
in such regions by rapid growth of population, usage of huge
agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, human unplanned
wastages, over exploitation of groundwater, increases indus-
tries in rural areas without a suitable plan, emit industries
polluted water, and deficiency of seasonal rains (Adimalla
and Venkatayogi 2018; Subba Rao et al. 2017). However,
there are two ions concentration in drinking water, severely
effects on human health and millions of people suffers in all
over the world which are fluoride and arsenic. Therefore,
it is one of the challenging deal with groundwater scien-
tists and researchers to identify the source of groundwater
contamination and protect the groundwater for future gen-
erations. However, excess fluoride content in groundwater
is one of the main problem that facing the arid and semi-
arid regions population. Mineral dissolution with F such as
fluorite (CaF
2
), muscovite [(KF)
2
(Al
2
O
3
)
3
(SiO
2
)
6
(H
2
O)],
biotite [K(Mg,Fe)
3
AlSi
3
O
10
F
2
], cryolite (Na
3
AlF
6
), and
fluorapatite (Ca
5
(PO
4
)
3
F), rock water interaction and ion
exchange between F
−
and OH
−
, are the most responsible
* Narsimha Adimalla
adimallanarsimha@gmail.com
1
School of Environmental Science and Engineering,
Chang’an University, No. 126 Yanta Road, Xi’an 710054,
China
2
Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecological
Effects in Arid Region of the Ministry of Education,
Chang’an University, No. 126 Yanta Road, Xi’an 710054,
Shaanxi, China
3
Department of Geoinformatics, Telangana University,
Nizamabad, Telangana State 503322, India
@Phil_Robichaud
@deepthiw
@JoseServera