Author(s)

Shakunthala Bai, Shivanna Srikantaswamy, Doddaiah Shivakumar

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The rapid growth of the population, the technological and industrial boom has brought enormous prob-lems and degradation of the environment. There is a gradual decline in availability of fresh water to be used for irrigation in India. As a consequence, the use of urban waste water (UWW) for irrigating agricultural lands is on the rise particularly in peri-urban areas of developing countries. Effective collection and treatment of urban wastewater is a critical problem in a developing country like India. A case study was undertaken to assess the characteristic of the urban waste water and its management in Mysore city and its long-term effect on irrigation. The untreated and treated urban waste water was collected during 2008 and analyzed in the laboratory. The suitability of the UWW for irrigation purposes is then evaluated according to the existing water quality standards and the results were compared with Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) irrigation water quality standards. It is evident from the results, that the current situation is not promising especially regarding the Electrical Conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Suspended Solids and heavy metal concentrations and also pH of the treated UWW is exceeding the FAO standards. Among the heavy metals, the concentration of Iron and chromium are exceeding the FAO standards.

Urban Waste Water, Water Quality Appraisal, Quality of Irrigation Water, Heavy Metal

S. Bai, S. Srikantaswamy and D. Shivakumar, "Urban Wastewater Characteristic and its Management in Urban Areas—A Case Study of Mysore City, Karnataka, India," Journal of Water Resource and Protection, Vol. 2 No. 8, 2010, pp. 717-726. doi: 10.4236/jwarp.2010.28082.