Baseline Study of Drinking Water Quality - A Case of Leh Town, Ladakh (J&K), India

Water is the vital resource on which life sustains and water becomes more valuable in this cold desert part of the northernmost region of India, called Ladakh which comprises of two districts, Leh and Kargil. Groundwater since ancient times in the form of springs provided ample water for the region and its contribution has increased manifold in the wake of recent spurt in bore well installations, especially, in Leh-Town. Due to increasing urbanization, with surge in a huge floating population in the absence of a sewerage link in summer tourism boom season, puts extra stress on the limited water resources of the area and with the rising living standards, grey and black water is being disposed off in the ground-pit or in septic tanks without any treatment. This may lead to pollution of groundwater resources especially, in the densely populated residential areas. For insuring sustainable development of groundwater, in the absence of any observation wells for constant monitoring of quality or quantity of groundwater and the unregulated installation of bore-wells makes this quality characterization very significant and helps in future management. The physico-chemical parameters like pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, hardness, alkalinity, nitrates, fluoride, and chlorides were analyzed to meet the objective of the study. The results revealed that in general, the present status of groundwater quality is suitable for drinking purposes and out of 20 total samples evaluated, 75% of samples had NTU above desirable limit while 10% samples each recorded TDS and EC above desirable limits.