Assessment of drinking water quality in Nalut city

Abstract

This study was carried out for the purpose of assessing the quality of drinking water in Nalut City in terms of physical and chemical properties and their conformity with Libyan specifications for drinking water No. 82. Where 11 water samples were collected in October 2017, representing most of the drinking water sources in the city, distributed as follows: 7 samples of the wells of the citizens in Wadi Nalut, which transfer their water to the city by means of water trucks, two sets of bottled water produced from desalination plants in the city, which feeds part of the city, and another sample from the municipal well. The physical and chemical analysis of these samples was performed at the Central Laboratory for Water Analysis in Ras-Hassan in the city of Tripoli. These tests included EC conductivity, TUR turbidity, total dissolved salts TDS, total TH, pH, calcium, magnesium, carbonate, bicarbonate, chloride, nitrate, sodium, potassium, sulphate. The results of the study showed that there was an increase in turbidity in 4 wells. While the concentration of bicarbonate exceeded the limit in most study sites according to the international standards in place 200mg / l; while the rest of the results were within the allowable rates in most samples. It should be noted that the samples taken from the desalination plants gave very low levels of calcium and magnesium concentrations well below the minimum levels that should be contained by drinking water of these two elements, which will have a negative impact on the health of its recipients when drinking directly without adding some mineral salts to these water sweetened.