A filter can be used to treat urban as well as rural water. The most common contaminants of rural surface water are impurities released from the fertilizers and pesticides used for unhindered growth of crops and plants . The surface runoff, after a flush get mixed with nitrate,sulfate and some other inorganic and also organic micro-constituents which are present in the cultivators watershed and may have been consumed by the crop itself. However without the runoff, it could have never reached the surface water sources like rivers and lakes. To know how to select a filter for rural water, a presentation was prepared which can be accessed from here.

1. How to remove pollutants
of rural water ?
• PREPARED BY : DR.MRINMOY MAJUMDER,FOUNDING EDITOR(HONR),
INNOVATE FOR SUSTAINABILITY,HTTP://WWW.BAIPATRA.WS.
• FIND ME IN RESEARCHGATE AND LINKED IN AS MRINMOY MAJUMDER
• IN TWITTER AND KUDOES AS KUTTU80

2. Different Types of Filters

3. PHYSICAL
FILTERS AND ION
EXCHANGE
FILTERS

4. ACTIVATED
CARBON
REVERSE
OSMOSIS

5. ACTIVATED
CARBON AND
REVERSE
OSMOSIS
FILTERS

6. Distillation vs UV Filters

7. DISTILLATION
AND UV
FILTERS

8. Contaminants in Rural Water
• In rural areas, sources of diffuse water pollution include: run-off from
agricultural land containing substances including pest control products, animal
medicines, slurry, sewage sludge and manure. run-off and leaching from
contaminated land. silt and dust from mining, quarrying, construction and
demolition.
• “….much of the pollution originates from animal wastes and commercial
fertilisers. To a lesser extent, groundwater contamination also occurs in this
sector as a result of inadequate percolation at septic tanks and from leaching
of water soluble plant nutrients from the soil.”…. (Department of the
Environment, Community and Local Government.Ireland,2020)
• Infectious diseases caused by bacteria like E Coli and parasites like
Cryptosporidium are the most significant health risk indicators associated with
contaminated drinking water mainly found in rural water.

9. Some tips and tricks while buying water filters
• In rural areas as described earlier (slide 25) water is generally collected from
surface water sources like lakes, ponds or rivers and there will be high chance of
contamination by both organic and inorganic pollutants which can be present in the
fertilizers and pesticides used in the agricultural fields for cultivation.
• In some location where ground water is extracted and used, probability of
concentration of heavy metals will be more compared to the water collected from
surface water sources.
• As the soil in the agricultural fields are loosely bound, soil particles can be carried
away by the surface runoff after a spell of rainfall which will also contaminate the
surface water source by increasing the Total Suspended Solids in the water body.
• Rural Water may also contain hardness.

10. Some tips and tricks while buying water filters
• In such areas activated carbon followed by ion exchange and if you have high
budget for procuring filters, then you can use RO at the last stage. Activate
Carbon filter will remove the suspended soil particles, Volatile Organic
Compounds(VOC), herbicides, pesticides, chlorines and some other inorganic
chemicals. In a study conducted by Abdulrazak et.al.(2016) activated carbon
filter was found to be able to remove heavy metals like Cadmium, Copper,
Nickel, and Lead from waste water.
• The remaining inorganic pollutants like sulphates and nitrates which was
dissolved due to the contamination from fertilizers and pesticides including
hardness of the water can be removed by the ion exchange filter.

11. Some tips and tricks while buying water filters
• RO filter will remove the remaining micro-organisms as both activated carbon
and ion-exchange filter can not remove micro-organic pollutants.
• However if you want to reduce your electricity consumption and avoid using
additional infrastructure for managing the waste water which is produced as a
by-product at the end of RO process then RO stage can be replaced by UV
lights which consume less electricity and also does not require any additional
waste water management procedure.
• On the other hand UV lights can remove the remaining amount of
microorganic pollutants after filtration by the ion exchange filter.

12. Thank you
• Visit me in Innovate for Sustainability(http://www.baipatra.ws)
• Join the group :
Water, Energy and Informatics
(http://groupspaces.com/WaterResourceManagers/)

13. References
• Abdulrazak, Sani, K. Hussaini, and H. M. Sani. "Evaluation of removal efficiency of
heavy metals by low-cost activated carbon prepared from African palm fruit." Applied
Water Science 7, no. 6 (2017): 3151-3155.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "A Guide to Drinking Water Treatment
Technologies for Household Use." (2015).
• Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government,2020,Urban
and Rural Water Pollution, Retrieved from http://www.askaboutireland.ie/enfo/irelands-
environment/water/water-pollution/urban-and-rural-water-pol/
• Pal, Amrita, Yiliang He, Martin Jekel, Martin Reinhard, and Karina Yew-Hoong Gin.
"Emerging contaminants of public health significance as water quality indicator
compounds in the urban water cycle." Environment international 71 (2014): 46-62.