Assessing of drinking water quality in Al-karak province in central Jordan; based on water saturation indices.

Jordan is renowned for having limited water resources. The demand for water will increasing rapidly as the country's population grows and the number of refugees increases. In order to maintain the highest water quality for consumers, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and other governmental agencies are striving to manage Jordan's water resources through continuous monitoring. The main objective was to evaluate the drinking water quality at storage mixing tanks at Al-Karak province, besides, assessing its suitability for safe consumption. The investigation scheme was to monitor Al-Karak's drinking water system for three successive months. The fourteen principal storage tanks for the water distribution system in the area of investigation were sampled. The pH, electrical conductivity (EC), major cations, major anions, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), turbidity, total alkalinity (TA), and heavy metals were measured. The scaling and originality of the dissolved salt elements in the collected water samples and geochemical processes were examined using Piper and Durov diagrams. The indices used in all samples over the period of investigation, are Langelier Saturation Index (LSI), Ryznar Stability Index (RSI), Aggressive Index (AI), Puckorius Scaling Index (PSI), and Water Quality Index (WQI). The results showed that scale development is high in all storage tanks, as the water is calcium carbonate supersaturated, evident from LSI values that ranges 0.5-2. According to the range of RSI values (5.91-6.6), all water tanks are resistant to corrosion. Throughout the period of study (October-December), the estimated WQIs of all samples upon average were found to be less than 50, indicating excellent water quality. Finally, the collected water samples are analyzed and found to be within the acceptable levels of Jordan's drinking water standards.