How we can know that increasing Potassium, Chloride and Bromide concentration can be an indicator about leakage from waste water into groundwater.
Increases in these could also indicate pollution from farm animals or mixing with a neighbor reservoir. Beware that bromide indicates seawater intrusion in the reservoir.
More specific indicators for wastewater I have seen used for shallow groundwater are e.g. boron and the drug carbamazepine.
thank you for your answer.
The area is karst area and very far from the sea
The first step is to determine the normal background water chemistry. You mention karst and not near the sea. So I would expect the background water chemistry to be mostly Ca-HCO3 with minor Cl. SO4 may be present since some carbonate rocks contain gypsum. Next, what is the chemistry of the waste water? For instance, the major components of landfill leachate are Na, HCO3 and Cl. But water from specific industrial processes may have much different chemistry. What do you mean by wastewater?
You may also want to look at the ratio of various compounds in the wastewater and groundwater. Also, as noted by my peers, identifying some tracer compounds in the wastewater that are not in the groundwater in appreciable quantities would provide a means to track wastewater leakage into ambient groundwater. Another interesting tracer would be caffeine as that has been found in wastewater since the 1970s.
Hello
Thank you for the valuable answers
The background water type is Ca-Mg-HCO3, where there is dolomitic limestone rocks in the area. Related to the waste water; most of the pollution will be domestic from leakage from the houses septic tanks. where the villages in the spring upstream still not connected to the sewage system.
Values of Cl/Br should be a big help to you. Take a look at the paper by Katz et al. (2011), and the second attached (STOTEN paper).
Boron may help, but only if the villagers use modern detergents which contains it - they may not. Boron also participates in ion exchange reactions, so care is needed when using it as a tracer; high B may mean freshening, not pollution. Finally, nitrate and (usually) sulphate are useful as indicators of waste-water.
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