International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Fluoride plays an essential role in preventing cavities when consumed in small amounts. However, continuous excessive fluoride ingestion could cause significant adverse health effects in humans, ranging from mild dental fluorosis to debilitating skeletal fluorosis, depending on the level and period of exposure to fluorides. In rural areas, the source of fluoride in well water could be due to natural, industrial, or anthropogenic contamination. The purpose of our work was to assess the degree of contamination of groundwater by fluorides from different regions in Morocco located in agricultural campaigns, where the only source of consumable water is well water. A total of 40 well water samples were collected from 7 rural Moroccan areas. Fluoride level analyses were performed using a fluoride-specific ion electrode (HI-4110). The fluoride levels found in the various well waters of the different regions range from 0.2 mg/l to 6.58 mg/l. Five wells have levels that exceed the recommended adult standards, while 28 wells have levels above the recommended standards for children. These results help warn the public about the risk of developing dental fluorosis and encourage them to change the sources of water consumption from the well waters with high fluoride content.

Index Terms—Fluorides, water, wells, potentiometry, rural area, Morocco.

Issam Essebbahi, Chadia Ouazzani, Youssef El Baroudi, and Lhoussine Balouch are with the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco (e-mail: ouazcom@yahoo.fr, essebbahi.issm@gmail.com, ussef.elbaroudi@gmail.com, houssinebalouch13@hotmail.com).
Abdellah Moustaghfir and Azzeddine Er-ramly are with the Laboratory of Research Odontological, Biomaterials and Nanotechnology, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco (e-mail: abdellah.moustaghfir@fmd.um5.ac.ma, a.erramly@um5s.net.ma).

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Cite: Issam Essebbahi, Chadia Ouazzani, Abdellah Moustaghfir, Azzeddine Er-ramly, Youssef El Baroudi, and Lhoussine Balouch, "Analysis of the Fluoride Levels of Well Water Consumed by the Moroccan Population in Different Rural Areas," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 158-163, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).