Assessment and public perception of drinking water quality and safety in district Vehari, Punjab, Pakistan Samina Khalid a, * , Behzad Murtaza a , Iram Shaheen a , Iftikhar Ahmad a , Muhammad Irfan Ullah b , Tahira Abbas c , Fariha Rehman d , Muhammad Rizwan Ashraf e , Sana Khalid a , Sunaina Abbas a , Muhammad Imran a a Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS Institute of InformationTechnology, Vehari, 61100, Pakistan b Department of Entomology, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, 40100, Pakistan c Department of Horticulture, Bahuddin Zakariya University Multan, Sub-Campus Layyah, Pakistan d Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan e University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Sub-Campus Burewala-Vehari, Pakistan article info Article history: Received 8 August 2017 Received in revised form 10 January 2018 Accepted 22 January 2018 Keywords: Drinking water quality Human health Microbial contamination Physicochemical analysis abstract Most of the developing countries including Pakistan have poor sanitary conditions which cause numerous diseases in human. Therefore, the present work aimed at evaluating the physicochemical and microbial contamination of drinking water in urban areas of three tehsils (Vehari, Mailsi and Burewala) of district Vehari based on occurrence of water-borne diseases. Forty-one water samples (six from tehsil municipal administration (TMA) water supply and 35 from electric pump) were collected from various locations of district Vehari for physicochemical and microbial analysis. In all the sampling sites pH (7.2e7.7), Phosphate (PO 4 3 ) (0.00e0.94 mg/L), Sulphate (SO 4 2 ) (0.00e172.8 mg/L), Magnesium (Mg þ2 ) (4.55e40.7 mg/L), Iron (Fe þ2 ) (0.00e0.09 mg/L), Copper (Cu þ2 ) (0.00e0.04 mg/L), Zinc (Zn þ2 ) (0.00e0.15 mg/L) and Manganese (Mn þ2 ) (0.00e0.01 mg/L) were found under WHO limits. Microbial contamination of Eschrichia coli and coliform were found in water samples of F-Block, D-Block and C-Block of tehsil Vehari. Results revealed that the values of certain parameters such as electrical conductivity (0.34e2.23 mS/cm), total dissolved solids (123e1430.4 mg/L), Sodium (Na þ ) (55.5e327.5 mg/L), Calcium (Ca þ2 ) (7.1e115 mg/L), Potassium (K þ ) (3.9 e17.75 mg/L), Chloride (Cl  ) (0.00e479.25 mg/L), and Nitrate (NO 3  ) (0.59e12.14 mg/L) exceed WHO limits in Sharqi Colony, Lalazar, Health Colony, TMA Sharqi Colony, Y-Block, 9-11 WB, College Town and 13-WB areas of district Vehari. Moreover, the survey of the sampled area was also conducted to assess public perception regarding water quality, its treatment, sanitation practices and possible reasons for the occur- rence of water borne diseases. The survey results showed that 48.6% of the respondents disagreed that drinking water of their area is good. Cross tab analysis exhibited that respondents from different gender (65.3%), marital status (65.3%) and family type (65.3%) did not treat drinking water before use. Peoples who were not satisfied with their drinking water quality reported more disease development (45.8%) compared to those who were satisfied (11.1%) with their drinking water quality. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The world is full of innumerable natural resources. While some of these have been discovered with their benefits identified, many still remain to be unearthed. However, among all the known natural resources to man, water undisputedly continues to stand out as the most important of all. Water scarcity is currently confronting topographical issue and very soon every part of the world will be under crisis of water (Mohsin et al., 2013). Availability of good quality water is the basic right of every human being living on the earth. However, over 844 million people on the Earth have no ac- cess to good quality drinking water and about 2.3 billion people still lack access to adequate sanitation facilities (WHO and UNICEF, 2017). Around 6000 children die every day from diseases linked Abbreviations: US EPA, United States Environmental Protection Agency; EU, European Union; EC, Electrical conductivity; TDS, Total dissolved solids; WB, West Bank; TMA, Tehsil municipal administration; WHO, World Health Organization. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: saminakhalid@ciitvehari.edu.pk (S. Khalid). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.01.178 0959-6526/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 181 (2018) 224e234