The Microbial and Physicochemical Analysis and Treatment of Groundwater of South Punjab, Pakistan

The availability of clean water is one of the pivotal objectives toward sustainable growth of any country. Pakistan, as a developing country, is facing the problem of bad water quality for decades and purification of groundwater has always been a problem. Thus, the present study aims to give a realistic picture of microbial contamination of groundwater of the two districts of the Province Punjab, Pakistan. Furthermore, we treat groundwater in our newly built robust water purification system which is cost-effective to check the efficiency of this system against microbial contaminations. Microbial contamination may lead to many water-borne diseases. The higher rates of microbial contamination including the levels of coliform, heterotrophic plate count and E. coli are found in 38 samples collected across different sites of the study area. Furthermore, we have treated these contaminated water samples by using a newly developed indigenous water purification system which is highly cost-effective and easy to use. All the contaminants were found below the WHO limit after treatment. Thus, we recommend the use of this robust water purification system which may help us to resolve the water crisis in an economically stressed country like Pakistan.