Arsenic contamination of groundwater and its health impact on residents in a village in West Bengal, India.

An in-depth study was carried out in Rajapur, an arsenic-affected village in West Bengal, India, to determine the degree of groundwater contamination with arsenic and the impact of this contamination on residents. The flow injection hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (FI-HG-AAS) method was used to measure arsenic concentrations in water and biological samples. Dermatologists recorded the dermatological features of arsenicosis. Out of a total of 336 hand-pumped tube-wells in Rajapur, 91% (307/336) contained arsenic at concentrations > 10 microg/l, and 63% (213/336) contained arsenic at > 50 microg/l. The type of arsenic in groundwater, the variation in concentrations of arsenic as the depth of tube-wells changed, and the iron concentration in the wells were also measured. Altogether 825 of 3500…