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Abstract: A sacred ritual well with continuously discharging of methane gas through its water body was studied for physicochemical and microbiological quality in three seasons and during ritual mass bathing. Most of the physicochemical parameters showed significant seasonal variations (P<0.05) and a sharp fluctuation during mass bathing. Dissolved oxygen (DO) was found negatively correlated with temperature (r=−0.384, P<0.05), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) (r=−0.58, P<0.001) and ammonia (r=−0.738, P<0.001), while BOD showed positive correlation with chemical oxygen demand (COD) (r=0.762, P<0.001) and ammonia (r=0.83, P<0.001). Simple regression analysis also yielded significant linear relationship in DO vs. temperature (r2 =0.147, P<0.05), DO vs. ammonia (r2 =0.544, P<0.001) and BOD vs. DO (r2 =0.336, P<0.001). A total of eight microbial indicators were studied and found that all of them increased unusually during mass bathing comparing with their respective seasonal values. Total coliforms (TC) were found positively correlated with fecal coliforms (FC) (r=0.971), FC with Escherichia coli (EC) (r=0.952), EC with intestinal enterococci (IE) (r=0.921), fecal streptococci (FS) with IE (r=0.953) and Staphylococcus aureus (SA) with Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) (r=0.946), which were significant at P<0.001. Some regression models showed significant linear relationship at P<0.001 with r2 value of 0.943 for FC vs. TC, 0.907 for EC vs. FC, 0.869 for FS vs. FC, 0.848 for IE vs. EC and 0.909 for IE vs. FS. The overall results found in this study revealed that well water is suitable for bathing purpose but the religious activity considerably worsen its quality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Titas River, a trans-boundary river of Bangladesh flows almost the entire Brahmanbaria district, consumes a huge amount of sewage, agricultural discharges and runoff, waste produced from human excreta, discharges of two oil mills and contaminants from other minor sources. A study is conducted to find the water quality status of the river during the period from July 2008 to June 2009 and by using National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) water quality index, the probable use of this water is predicted. This work consists of laboratory tests for the evaluation of some water quality parameters of the Titas and to identify its probable use in various purposes. The results of the laboratory tests and NSF water quality index suggest that the water can be used for recreation, pisciculture and irrigation purposes but requires treatment before using for drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]