Water quality in sustainable water management

Water pollution is a serious problem as almost 70% of India's surface water resources and a growing number of its groundwater reserves have been contaminated by biological, organic and inorganic pollutants. Pollution of surface and groundwater resources occurs through point and diffuse sources. Examples of point source pollution are effluents from industries and from sewage-treatment plants. Typical examples of diffuse pollution sources are agricultural runoffs due to inorganic fertilizers and pesticides and natural contamination of groundwater by fluoride, arsenic and dissolved salts due to geo-chemical activities. In pursuit of measures to achieve sustainability in water management, the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has begun to address treatment of fluoride-contaminated groundwater for potable requirements. The fluorosis problem is severe in India as almost 80% of the rural population depends on untreated groundwater for potable water supplies. A new method to treat fluoride-contaminated water using magnesium oxide has been developed at IISc. The IISc method relies on precipitation, sedimentation, and filtration techniques and is efficient for a range of groundwater chemistry conditions.