A Survey on Peaple Awareness Regarding Nitrate Pollution of Drinking Water in Arak City

The nitrate ion is one of the most important pollutants of drinking water in the City of Arak. According to the latest research results, the concentration of this ion in 80% of Arak's drinking water supply network is over than 10 mg-N per liter, and according to international and national (Iran) standards, this amount would make the water unsuitable for drinking. As in today's world, making decision and planning at a large scale in all fields, particularly environmental fields, is highly dependent on people's participation, it is necessary to raise public awareness about local environmental Issues. The purpose of this study was to determine the publick awareness of Arak people to the nitrate pollution of tap water of this city, and to measure their different approaches (reactions) to this environmental Issue. The necessary data and information for the research was obtained from a questionnaire form that were distributed in the different city areas and then gathered for being analyzed statistically with SPSS software. The data of this research showed that about 90% of the individuals were aware of the low quality of Arak's drinking water, but only 38% of these people are aware of high nitrate concentration in Arak tap water. Only 15% of questioned people were aware of the danger to their health caused by high nitrate concentration and have seriously reacted to it. According to the results obtained in this study, although there was a reasonable relationship between people's level of education with the water quality, no relationship was found between their level of education with their awareness of high nitrate concentrations or the risks to their health associated with it.