Water Pollution

kerala is one among the most thickly populated region in the world and the population is increasing at a rate of 14%per decade.As a result of the measures to satisfy the needs of the huge popualtion,the rivers of kerala have been increasingly polluted from the industrial and domestic waste and from the pesticides and fertilizer in agriculture.Industries discharge hazardous pollutants like phosphates, sulphides, ammonia, fluorides, heavy metals and insecticids into the downstream reaches of the river.The river periyar and chaliyar are very good examples for the pollution due to industrial effluents. it is estimated that nearly 260million litres of trade effluents reach the Periyar estuary daily from the Kochi industrial belt.A list of major industries situated here and the nature of their outputs indicates the type of chemicals that are likely to find their way into the river Periyar is given in the table

The major water quality problem associated with rivers of kerala is bacteriological pollution.The assessment of river such as chalakudy, Periyar, Muvattupuzha, Meenachil, Pamba and achenkovil indiacet that the major quality problem is due to bacteriological pollution and falls under B or C category of CPCB classification.There are local level quality problems faced by all rivers especially due to dumping of solid waste, bathing and discharge of effluents.

with regard to groundwater, water quality charecteristics of wells in Kerala are found to be affected by chemical and biological contaminants.The ground water quality problemas in the coastal araes are mainly because of the presence of excess chloride.The chloride concentration >250mb/l was detected in the well water samples of Azhicode, Kakkathuruthy, Edathinjil, Kadalundi, Chellanum, nallalam, Mankombu and Haripad. in Alappuzha district, flouride concentration in the pumbing wells was observed to be high.In midland region, with regard to ionic concentraion, the concentration of flouride iron and chlorid were found to be on the higher side.The flouride content was observed to be beyond the permissible limit of 1 mg/1.Deep well sin Chittur taluk and Knajikod areas of palakkad district are found to contain flouride concentration greater than 1mg/l.

open well of kerala have the bacetriological comtamination.In kerala about 60% of the population relies on ground water from drinking.At the same time studies have shown that faecal contamination is present in 90% of drinking water wells.The open charecter of the wellsand conventional maintanance habits and use of buckets and rope to draw water, kitchen wastes and pit latrineswith average family load factor (5 members) at a distance of less than 5 meters fromwells are some of the factors, which are found to be contributing to the bacteriological contamuination. ground water contamination due to industrial pollution has been reported from places of Kochi (eatern part of aluva), palakkad amnd some parts of kollam, Kozhicode and Kannur.

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