The southwestern part of the Nile Delta (north Giza Governorate) presently is fast urban growth with uncontrolled rates. The surface water and groundwater of the Quaternary aquifer are now suffering from pollution problems due to human activities that impair groundwater quality. The use of septic tanks, throwing dumps in canals and drains, intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides and use of untreated or partially treated sewage water for irrigation contributes pollutant effluent directly to the groundwater.
The objective was to assess the impact of human activities on surface water and groundwater quality. To achieve that, 9 surface water samples and 30 groundwater samples are chemically and bacteriologically analyzed. The distributions of different pollutants in groundwater are carefully studied.
Results indicates that the distributions of salinity, major ions, trace metal, nitrates and ammonium are higher in shallow wells than in the deeper ones and the local variations in its content are coincident. This confirms the existence of local pollution sources resulted from the infiltration of domestic, agricultural and industrial wastes. The groundwater at El Oweina, El Motamedeya, Bortus, Ausim, Bani Magdoul, Kirdasa and Nahya is unsuitable for drinking because it contains concentrations of pollutants exceeds the WHO (1984a) permissible limits.
The number of E.Coli bacteria, which indicates water pollution with human sewage, is high in surface water and shallow groundwater. The bacterial count decreases with depth, therefore, the surface water and shallow groundwater (< 40m depth) should chemically treated before drinking
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