Protecting the quality of groundwater is a necessity that requires significant restrictions on land use. Because such restrictions are of complex socio-economic consequences, they should be carefully adjusted to the spatially varied protection needs. This paper describes the development of a series of maps designed to facilitate groundwater protection decisions according to land surface zoning. The zoning was based on attributes descriptive of the basic elements of risk (hazard, exposure and consequences) to groundwater quality in Kuwait to provide basis for adjusting the protective regulations to the needs. Standardized maps of the major categories of potentially hazardous activities were prepared using ArcGIS. A country scale map combining and ranking all the hazardous activities was prepared using the USEPA's hazard ranking system (HRS). The intrinsic vulnerability of the groundwater was mapped using the DRASTIC model. The relative value of the groundwater was mapped according to the three-component criteria of current and future dependence on groundwater, as well as interaction with environmental resources, which were adapted from USEPA criteria for prioritizing the protection/remediation funds. Agricultural activities and oil-related industries were ranked the most hazardous activities in Kuwait. The patterns of the intrinsic vulnerability seemed to be dictated by the depth to the groundwater and the material of the unsaturated zone. Decision making tools were produced by combining the above maps as follows: (1) vulnerability and hazard maps to produce the risk map, (2) risk and value maps to produce the value weighted risk map, and (3) vulnerability and value maps to produce release consequences map. The produced maps should serve the purposes of identifying all potential monitoring targets, prioritizing of funds allocation for monitoring or other corrective actions, and adjusting the land use restrictions to the needs as well as allocating future potentially hazardous land use, respectively. Benefits of including the groundwater value in the criteria for protecting the resource were illustrated by .kw1 1678 A. A. Fadlelmawla et al. comparing the decisions that would be logically made based on schemes with and without groundwater value as part of the criteria.
The GIS technology is used in this study to analyze the water quality and determine the extent of pollution in Kuwait Bay using the collected data in 2014 during winter and summer months. The analysis included five water quality parameters namely ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, TOC and chlorophyll concentration. The IDW interpolation method proved to be helpful for better mapping of water quality. Seasonal variations in concentrations of all water quality parameters were observed in this study. Temperature plays an important role in such variations since the temperature of Kuwait bay reached an average value of 31.85潞C in July, while it reached an average of 14.22潞C in January. For both seasons, the bays' water is highly polluted according to KEPA standards, while summer months being more critical than winter months. The dissolved oxygen concentration in summer reached 4.0 mg/l while in winter is 6.8 mg/l. The used technique proved to be very illustrative in determining spatial distribution and mapping of water quality parameters.
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