A Study on the Chemical Composition of Rainwater in an Industrial City of India

L. SAHU (1), B.K. Padhi (2), P.K. Padhy (1) and R. N. Saha (3)

(1)Centre for Environmental Studies, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India (2) School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (3)National Institute Of Technology Durgapur, India

     Abstract Number: 797
     Last modified: May 15, 2010

Abstract
Rainwater chemistry plays an important role to determine the quality of air pollutants and aerosols deposited to the earth surfaces, which poses a serious threat to human environment, such as vegetation, soil, water, forestry etc. The primary objective of this study was to characterize the rain water at Durgapur, an industrial city of West Bengal, India. The rainwater samples were collected and analyzed for major anions, cations and pH along with electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids. Of the rain events, 95% recorded alkaline pH (>5.6). In this study, ratio of TA/TC is quite below 1.0, indicating alkaline nature of rainwater. In order to estimate the marine and non-marine contribution, sea salt fraction has been calculated taking Na+ as reference. All ionic ratios have been found to be higher than the recommended sea water ratios, suggesting a significant contribution of non-marine origin for these components. The present work could serve as a bench-mark study for this region and further long-term study is required for assessment of chemical nature of precipitation.