ANALYSIS OF NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY AND HEAVY METALS IN DRINKING WATER OF ROORKEE AND LAKSAR REGION

Abstract

Environmental Radioactivity is a major concern these days. Radioactivity may cause long term losses such as we have seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although radioactivity is present on earth, in soil, water and air naturally since the formation of earth but if the dose of the radioactive substances increases above the threshold or permissible limit, it may cause the serious consequences. Soil and water mainly have Uranium, Thorium and Potassium naturally present. The main naturally occurring radioactive isotopes found in soil include 40K, 222Ra, 238U, and 232Th (potassium, Radium, Uranium, Thorium). A case study was done in the Roorkee and Laksar region of Haridwar district village of Roorkee region in Haridwar district to study environmental radioactivity to study the natural radioactivity in water and soil. The region has a high population of people. The peculiar tract of the region is that it has a large number of villages for which drinking water is either hand pump or submersible pipes. Also, there is a hair loss and baldness problem among youths of 20 plus years of age. A study was done to track the uranium concentration in the drinking water supply and underground submersible pump water at the village along with the heavy metal test in the drinking water. A total of 121 water samples were collected from the region and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) technique was applied over the samples to check the uranium and heavy metal concentration. Apart from checking concentration of radioactive and heavy metal concentration, the study has also checked the physiochemical parameter such as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), PH and Electrical Conductivity (EC) of 121 samples to check and find correlation between the quality of water and elemental analysis of drinking tap water using ICPMS.The resulted water samples were found with uranium concentration below the recommended limit by WHO. However there are high concentration of few heavy metal in some parts of the region as per studies and tests. Similarly soil samples from the village were also tested using radiation survey meter. The soil of the region does not show any high concentration of radioactivity. A few samples of soils from the region has been tested using Radiation Survey Meter and results are noted.