Discover the Editor's Choice: From each issue of the Water Supply a member of the Editorial Board selects one outstanding paper to share across IWA Publishing platforms.
IWA Publishing is pleased to announce that the 7th Editor's Choice Paper, chosen by Editor, Tsair-Fuh Lin, is:
Abdul Ghaffar; Naveed Iqbal
https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2020.340
Why was this paper chosen?
Issue 21.4 includes 35 excellent papers, authored by researchers from different continents, and covers a range of interesting topics relevant to water supply, including hydraulics and hydrology, irrigation, water quality, storm water and watershed, leak detection, treatment technologies, and their management and modelling. The paper recommended as the Editor’s Choice of this issue is authored by Abdul Ghaffar and Naveed Iqbal from the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, entitled Impact of wastewater irrigation on groundwater in the Lahore region and contamination source identification. In the study, the research group collected and analyzed groundwater samples from a densely populated city in Pakistan, where industrial and urban wastewater was used for irrigation. The groundwater was found to be contaminated by organochlorine pesticides/organic pollutants, nitrate and total dissolved solid, with some of them exceeding WHO drinking water quality guideline values. Stable isotope analyses of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were performed to assess the sources of the pollutants. They found that wastewater irrigation, unlined wastewater drains, and fertilizers are the main sources of the pollution. The authors successfully applied modern analytical methods to quantify the pollutants present in the groundwater and based on the data, they are able to identify the sources of the pollution. The paper provides scientific basis for better management of irrigation water and protection of groundwater quality.
Tsair-Fuh Lin, Editor.