The river periyar and chaliyar are very good examples for the pollution due to industrial effluents. it is estimated that nearly 260 million litres of trade effluents reach the Periyar estuary daily from the Kochi industrial belt. The major water quality problem associated with rivers of Kerala is bacteriological pollution.The assessment of river such as Chalakudy, Periyar, Muvattupuzha, Meenachil, Pamba and Achenkovil indicates that the major quality problem is due to bacteriological pollution and falls under B or C category of CPCB classification.There are local level quality problems faced by all rivers especially due to dumping of solid waste, bathing and discharge of effluents.With regard to groundwater, water quality charecteristics of wells in Kerala are found to be affected by chemical and biological contaminants.

The ground water quality problemas in the coastal araes are mainly because of the presence of excess chloride.The chloride concentration250mb/l was detected in the well water samples of Azhicode, Kakkathuruthy, Edathinjil, Kadalundi, Chellanum, nallalam, Mankombu and Haripad. in Alappuzha district, flouride concentration in the pumbing wells was observed to be high.In midland region, with regard to ionic concentraion, the concentration of flouride iron and chlorid were found to be on the higher side.The flouride content was observed to be beyond the permissible limit of 1 mg/1.Deep wells in Chittur taluk and Knajikod areas of Palakkad district are found to contain flouride concentration greater than 1mg/l.Open well of Kerala are under threat of bacetriological comtamination.In Kerala about 60% of the population relies on ground water for drinking.At the same time studies have shown that faecal contamination is present in 90% of drinking water wells.

The open character of the wells, and conventional maintanance habits, and use of buckets and rope to draw water, kitchen wastes and pit latrines with average family load factor (5 members) at a distance of less than 5 meters from wells are some of the factors, which are contributing to the bacteriological contamuination.Ground water contamination due to industrial pollution has been reported from places of Kochi (eastern part of Aluva), Palakkad and some parts of Kollam, Kozhikode and Kannur.