Assessment of the Quality of Rafsanjan Drinking Water Resources using Water Quality Index (WQI) Model in 2018: A Descriptive Study

Background and Objectives In recent years, excessive use of groundwater resources and the discharge of urban and industrial wastewater in the environment has contaminated and reduced the quality of groundwater resources. The aim of this study was to determine the quality of drinking water resources in Rafsanjan city using water quality index (WQI) in 2018.

This descriptive study was carried out on 7 drinking water wells in Rafsanjan city in 2018. One year data (2017 year) about 11 parameters including pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), bicarbonate (HCO3-), chlorine (Cl-), sulfate (SO4-), nitrate (NO3-), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) was obtained from water and wastewater company of Rafsanjan. Then the WQI model was used for evaluation and calculation of water quality.

The results showed that the mean concentration of all parameters of the water resources in Rafsanjan was within the World Health Organization (WHO) standard. The assessment of the water quality of Rafsanjan based on the WQI model showed that the water quality of 14.28% of the resources was in the excellent and very good range and 85.72% in the good range. The mean and standard deviation score of water resources quality according to the WQI model was 55.78±4.71, which is in a good quality range.

Considering the quality of drinking water resources in Rafsanjan, in order to prevent the reduction of this quality, the implementation of proper management and preventing unnecessary use of water resources should be considered.