The Impact Of Water Quality On Public Health

The health and well being of the human race is closely tied up with the quality of water used (Sharma et al, 2005 and Venkateswaran, 2011). Water quality has direct impact on public health (Kumar,2003 and Arunabh Misra et al,2010). People on globe are under tremendous threat due to undesired changes in the water quality parameters such as physical, chemical and biological characteristics of air, water and soil. These undesirable changes due to pollution caused by the addition of organic and inorganic materials from non point sources such as sewage, food waste, farm effluent, through drainage ditches, including artificial fertilizer residues, insecticides, herbicides, pesticides and farmyard waste, in addition from point sources such as electroplating, pesticide, fertilizer and beverage industries. Addition to these, disposal of dead bodies, discharge of industrial and sewage wastes and agricultural runoff, which are major cause of ecological damage and pose serious health hazards (Meitei et al., 2004a).
The pollutant from agricultural lands such as fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides and from anthropogenic activities such as mining, disposal of toxic metals, human and animal faeces, industrial, domestic, municipal wastes are continuously discharged into river, such as Vaigai, are the major casues for deterioration of water quality (Karet al,2008 and Amman et al, 2002). In order to maintain the quality of drinking water, an essential component to humans and other living