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The industrial augmentation and unguided anthropogenic activities contaminate water sources in most parts of the world especially in developing countries like Pakistan. High concentration of pollutants in groundwater affects human, soil, and crop health badly. The present study was conducted to investigate groundwater quality for drinking and irrigation purposes in an industrial zone of Pakistan. A GIS tool was used to investigate the spatial distribution of different physico-chemical parameters. In this study, the average results exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) and National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) were found for pH 7.84, total dissolved solids (TDS) 1492 mg/L, phosphate 0.51 mg/L, dissolved oxygen (DO) 9.92% saturation, F-coli 6.48 colonies/100 mL, Na+ 366 mg/L, HCO3− 771 mg/L, sulfate 251 mg/L, chlorides 427 mg/L, total hardness (as CaCO3) 292 mg/L, electrical conductivity (EC) 2408 μS/cm, iron (Fe) 0.48 mg/L, chrome (Cr) 0.50 mg/L, arsenic (As) 0.04 mg/L, total phosphorus (TP) 0.17 mg/L, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) 9.76 (in meq/L), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) 9.28 meq/L, % ion balance 14.4 (in meq/L), percentage sodium ion (% Na+) concentration 58.9 meq/L, and water quality index (WQI) 69.0. The trend of cations and anions were (in meq/L) Na > Mg > Ca > K and HCO3 > Cl > CO3 > SO4 respectively. Although the results of the present study showed poor conditions of the groundwater for drinking as WQI but and irrigation purposes as SAR, it needs to improve some more conditions for the provision of safe drinking water and irrigation water quality.

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Two okra cultivars (Chinese green and Chinese red) were subjected to salt stress for 12 weeks. Salt stress treatments T1 (20.8 mM), T2 (103.3 mM), T3 (180.0 mM) and T4 (257.0 mM) were applied with equal proportions of NaCl and CaCl2 in Hoagland nutrient solution. Salt stress significantly affects photosynthesis, transpiration, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, water potential, plant height, root length, fresh weight and dry weight of both okra cultivars in every salt stress treatment. At T2, T3 and T4, Chinese red plants maintained their physiological and growth traits up to Weeks 9, 6 and 3, respectively; beyond these salt-stress durations, growth reductions were found. Similarly, Chinese green plants maintained their growth up to Weeks 9, 5 and 3, respectively, at T2, T3 and T4 treatments. In comparison, Chinese red showed more tolerance than Chinese green. According to the results, the third and ninth weeks are the tolerance threshold limits for both cultivars to sustain their physiological traits and growth under T4 and T2 salinity treatments. Similarly, Chinese red has the threshold limit to bear T3 treatment up to the eighth week and Chinese green, up to the fifth week. Thus, this study provides a new method to determine the threshold value of crops with respect to duration under salt stress. This finding would be useful in the field of water saving and utilisation of saline water resources.