MAPPING OF DRINKING WATER QUALITY IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Contamination of drinking water poses a major challenge to the environmentalists in developing countries. Water quality mapping helps identifying issues related to drinking water in a given area. Though limited water quality mapping is being carried out in the advanced countries but developing countries such as Pakistan are lacking in data resource and advanced decision making techniques for drinking water quality mapping. As a result of incoherent planning and decision making, country wide water quality maps are not readily available for the researchers, civil society and Government / Non Governmental Organizations. Clean Drinking Water Initiative was the project floated by the Government of Pakistan with the assistance of Provincial Governments to provide clean drinking water to the community at large. Ministry of Environment initially included the Project "Clean Drinking Water Initiative" in the PSPD 2003-2004. The revised project of "Clean Drinking Water Initiative" was launched in 2005. It catered for installation of one water purification plant in each Tehsil of Pakistan. To assist the project, [ESE was assigned the responsibility for collection of water samples from each Tehsil, analysis of samples at [ESE laboratories, and compilation of comprehensive Tehsil level reports. This enormous task was carried out by dedicated teams constituted out of faculty and students of IESE. This study is a step further to Clean Drinking Water Initiative Project (CDWIP) aimed at integration of all Tehsil reports through Geographical Information System (GIS) to provide drinking water quality maps of Pakistan and GIS based decision making tools in the form of graphical and tabulated output. Drinking water samples collected from selected sites of each Tehsil were tested at IESE laboratories against pertinent WHO's water quality parameters for preparation of Tehsil report. Data collected was complied in Microsoft Word / Excel, which is further transformed into vector format on Survey of Pakistan (SOP) digital Tehsil map of Pakistan. Using this information drinking water quality profile and limit maps have been produced, GIS application is also developed by using ARC GIS software. The study is expected to assist in propagation of areas where population is exposed to different types of contamination to highest level. It will benefit general public through improvement in