Hydro-chemical Assessment and GIS-mapping of Groundwater Quality Parameters in Semi-arid Regions

Groundwater quality assessment is vital to protect this resource. Therefore, the aims of this study were to evaluate the hydro-chemical quality of the Marvdasht aquifer located in the semi-arid region of Iran and to map the groundwater quality parameters.

Representative Image by Hadi Karimi (published under CC3.0 Licence on Wikimedia)

For this purpose, a mean data of 11 groundwater quality parameters collected from 49 wells (2010–2015) were used. Pie, Schoeller and Piper diagrams were used to determine the dominant ions and type of water. Ion ratios and Gibs diagram were used to illustrate the chemistry and processes in the groundwater. Spatial distribution of quality parameters were mapped using ArcGIS. Results showed that the water type is Na-Cl and, Cl− with abundance orders of CL− > SO42− > HCO3−and Na+ with abundance orders of Na+ > Mg2 + >Ca2+ > K+ are dominant anion and cation, respectively. Gibs diagrams reveal that geological formations control the groundwater chemistry in 66% of the groundwater samples. Based on the Wilcox diagram, only 24% of the samples fall into the C4–S4 class with high salinity and alkalinity hazard.

The maps showed that generally groundwater in the north of the study site has better quality than that the south of the study site, where the existence of dolomite and chalky formations leads to decreasing water quality.

Citation:

Afshin Honarbakhsh; Aliasghar Azma; Yaser Ostovari; Milad Mousazadeh; Mobin Eftekhari, "Hydro-chemical assessment and GIS-mapping of groundwater quality parameters in semi-arid regions", Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology-Aqua jws2019009, DOI: 10.2166/aqua.2019.009

This paper is published by IWA Publishing 2019. All rights reserved.

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Taxonomy

• Groundwater
• GIS