Status of groundwater arsenic contamination in all 17 blocks of Nadia district in the state of West Bengal, India: A 23-year study report

A comprehensive study was conducted in Nadia, one of the nine arsenic (As) affected districts in West Bengal, India to determine the extent and severity of groundwater As contamination and its health effects in particular, dermatological effects and neurological complications. We collected 28,947 hand tube-well water samples from all 17 blocks of Nadia district and analyzed for As by the flow injection-hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometer (FI-HG-AAS). We found 51.4% and 17.3% of the tube-wells had As above 10 and 50 mu g/L, respectively and observed that groundwater of all 17 blocks contained As above 50 mu g/L with maximum observed level of 3200 mu g/L. We estimated that about 2.1 million and 0.6 million people could be drinking As contaminated water above 10 and 50 mu g/L, respectively, while 0.048 million could be at risk of drinking As-contaminated water above 300 mu g/L, the concentration predicted to cause overt arsenical skin lesions. We screened 15,153 villagers from 50 villages and registered 1077 with arsenical skin lesions resulting in a prevalence rate of 7.1%. Analyzing 2671 biological samples (hair, nail and urine), from people with and without arsenical skin symptoms we found 95% of the samples had As above the normal level, indicating many people in Nadia district are sub-clinically affected. Arsenical neuropathy was observed in 33% of 255 arsenicosis patients with 28.2% prevalence for predominant sensory neuropathy and 4.7% for sensorimotor. As groundwater is still the main source of drinking water, targeting low-As aquifers and switching tube-well from unsafe to nearby safe sources are two visible options to obtain safe drinking water. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.