Fluoride contamination in Gharbar Village of Dhanbad District, Jharkhand, India: source identification and management

This paper reports occurrence of high fluoride concentration in groundwater of Gharbar Village, Dhanbad District, Jharkhand, India. The concentration of fluoride varied from 0.3 to 14.9 mg/L in 27 groundwater samples. The correlation studies demonstrate that fluoride has strong positive correlation with pH and sodium and negative correlation with calcium. It indicates dominance of ion exchange activity and rock water interaction. Thermodynamic consideration shows that all the samples were oversaturated with calcite and most of the samples were under saturated with fluorite. The results indicate that occurrence of high concentration of fluoride is leading by geochemical composition of rocks, alkaline environmental condition, weathering of rocks and ion exchange processes.