Determination of Levels of Selected Physicochemical Parameters and Heavy Metals in Drinking Water of Bichena Town, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Groundwater is one of the most important sources of drinking tap water in Ethiopia. Hence, it is important to assess the quality of these water sources as it might be contaminated by various human activities. The primary purpose of the study was to assess some physicochemical parameters and determine the levels of selected essential and non-essential metals in drinking tap water in Bichena Town of East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. Two composite drinking water samples were obtained from the reservoir and the pipe water collected from Bichena town kebeles systematically. Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (FAAS) was used for the determination of selected essential and non-essential metals in the tap water samples following wet acid digestion. The levels of selected physicochemical parameters of the drinking tap water were found to be: temperature (13.54 to 17.29 0.0090), pH (7.23±0.0410 to 7.54±0.051), TDS (480±0.0023 to512±0.0.0061), alkalinity (44.92±0.0032 to 50.49±0.2004), electrical conductivity (50±0.1020 to 65±0.1004), and hardness (50±0.1040 to 39±0.1007) for the pipe and tanker water. The physicochemical parameter values were within the standard values of drinking water including the WHO permissible limits. The determinations of the essential and non-essential metal contents showed the following results (mg/L): (9.00±0.0420 to 9.88 , (15.918±0.1004 to 14.50 (0.095 0.008 to 0.101 0.002), (0.279 0.342 0.007), ( 0.041), (2.014 .001) for Mg, Ca, Mn, Fe, Cu and Zn, respectively for the tap water in the pipe and tanker. Chromium, lead and cadmium were below the detection limit of the instrument, FAAS in the present study. All the results in this study were below the permissible limit of WHO guidelines for the quality of drinking wate