Groundwater Quality Appraisal and its Hydrochemical Characterization in and around Iron Ore Mine, Chitradurga, Karnataka

Groundwater (GW) is a significant freshwater resource for domestic, industrial and irrigation water supply in the India. During last decades, the demand of groundwater supply for drinking, domestic, irrigation, industrial and multipurpose uses has increased due to the rapidly rising population and constant desire for a better lifestyle in developing countries. Increasing demand for fresh water supply is exerting tremendous pressure on both surface and groundwater reserves which leads toward overexploitation and unsustainable groundwater development. Unsustainable groundwater development, overexploitation, and improper management of mining waste, wastewater from mining areas causes adverse impact on quality of groundwater [1,2]. However, the quality of GW is also directly or indirectly influenced by the leaching of geogenic contaminants through mining site as a consequence of rock-water interaction during the process of percolation [3] and when water moves through a hydrological cycle it transfers both inorganic and organic components from soil to water. Resulted, the higher concentration of ions in groundwater more than the acceptable limits of water quality standards [4,5] which causes acute water-borne diseases in man and animals and also through food-chain [6,7]. Therefore, the issues related to groundwater quality deterioration by anthropogenic activities are a pre-requisite for undertaking a detailed study on the groundwater geochemistry for restoring and maintaining its basic characteristics for which it is being explored. In Developing countries, mineral resources are significant sources for the economic development of the nation, but mineral development processes include exploration, extraction, and processing, are chief causes for poor groundwater quality in mining areas [8]. Exploration, extraction, and processing of minerals on a largescale generate a huge amount of mining waste has become an environmental concern and responsible for several types of damage and hazards including groundwater pollution. Chemical speciation, oxidation, and dissolution of chemical agents of major water-bearing rock formations (granite, gneiss) and minerals found in the studied area like silicates, carbonates, dolomite, and hematite, limestone, calcite and pyrite, are major factors governing migration of geogenic pollutant [9,10]. It has been reported that mobility, bioavailability, and leaching of major ions are also significant factors affecting the quality of groundwater. However, valence state, atomic weight, ionic potential and composition of soil are most important factors affecting the mobility of cations in the aqueous phase. Since, elements with higher atomic weight like Fe, Cd, Cr, and Zn have less mobility than major ions thus major Volume 1 Issue 5 2017