Capacity Building for Micro-Pollutant Analyses in Semi-Urban Water Supply and Public Health

Capacity Building for analyses of Micro-pollutants in Water Bodies

Objective

• Micropollutants cant be analysed by routine water analyses methods. We will take up "capacity building" to develop suitable techniques for the analyses of selected important micropollutants especially those that change the hormone levels and harm the reproductive capacity in humans and animals., Most of the techniques for MP analyses involve GC-MS analysis with selected cartridges. Neither the instrument nor the cartridges are available at affordable cost for the public. We propose to simplify the technique and develop and prepare low cost cartridges which can be distributed to the concerned public health laboratories in order to pre-process and extract the water samples., We will create a data base on the extent of occurrence of MPs in various water bodies in densely populated areas in the city and peri-urban areas of Chennai, wherein the sewerage connections do not exist, and people are living with septic tanks, close to lakes or ponds.

Description

• The identification of source of anthropogenic pollutants will be of use to stake holders like government regulatory bodies like the Central Pollution Board, Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board, Water And Sanitation Regulatory Authorities, Corporation of Chennai. Public and private companies involved in real estate development of large housing complexes in peri-urban/suburban Chennai districts where decentralized sewerage management is done through STPs and septic tanks

Impact

• The capacity building for the cost effective analyses of MPs using low cost kits will help to survey many many areas suspected to be polluted -time line 6 months., The analysis of the data can be used in mapping the comprehensive "Fate of Transport of micro pollutants" and persistence in the urban environment.