Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in Karimpur-I Block, District Nadia, West-Bengal and Investigation for Safe Water Option

The current chapter presents 18 years’ of work (1989–2007) related to groundwater arsenic concentration in Karimpur I block in the Nadia District of West Bengal, India. The study was conducted by the School of Environmental Studies (SOES), Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and is taken from the Ph.D. thesis of the first author of this chapter. The work summarizes the results of groundwater samples collected from all 104 villages of 67 inhabited Mouzas (among a total of 74) from Karimpur I block. This block is one of the earliest identified arsenic-affected blocks from West Bengal and is considered to be severely arsenic-contaminated. Among the 3374 water samples collected from this block, 1896 (56.2%) and 1000 (29.6%) were having arsenic concentrations >10 µg/L and >50 µg/L, respectively. In addition to arsenic, depth information of 2825 samples was collected and 15 (0.5%) tubewells were found to have depths of >100 m. A total of 375 samples were analyzed for arsenic and iron. The highest iron concentration recorded was 34,730 µg/L with an average of 4870 µg/L. Analysis of urine samples indicated a substantial arsenic body burden as 78 samples (70.3%) were found to contain arsenic beyond the normal range (5–40 µg/1.5 L per day). In order to assess the current status of safe water options in this block, the existing arsenic mitigation strategies were investigated and analyzed for their usefulness and sustainability. This study concludes with recommendations for utilizing the available safe water options for mitigation efforts.