A wide spectrum of reactive networks and graft copolymers of acrylamide and acrylic acid, alone or with some binary monomers, have been synthesized by benzoyl peroxide as an initiator using glutaraldehyde as the crosslinker and have been characterized by water uptake studies. It was observed that these polymers behave as hydrogels and absorb a good amount of water that has no dependence on the amount of polymer incorporated by grafting but rather depends on the nature of the polymer grafted. In a field study on the actual water samples, these polymers were used to treat some natural water systems otherwise rendered non-potable by natural contamination. The water treated with the hydrogels was made potable and usable for agricultural purposes. The characteristics of the natural water and treated water samples were studied and compared. In a single treatment study, it was observed that a high shift in pH and total scavenging of iron was affected by almost all the hydrogels studied.