Groundwater quality assessment using geospatial and statistical tools in Salem District, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

The water quality study of Salem district, Tamil Nadu has been carried out to assess the water quality for domestic and irrigation purposes. For this purpose, 59 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), major anions (HCO 3-, CO 3-, F-, Cl-, NO 2-? NO 3-, and SO 4 2-), major cations (Ca 2? Mg 2? , Na ? , and K ?), alkalinity (ALK), and hardness (HAR). To assess the water quality, the following chemical parameters were calculated based on the analytical results, such as Piper plot, water quality index (WQI), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), magnesium hazard (MH), Kelly index (KI), and residual sodium carbonate (RSC). Wilcox diagram represents that 23% of the samples are excellent to good, 40% of the samples are good to permissible, 10% of the samples are permissible to doubtful, 24% of the samples are doubtful unsuitable, and only 3% of the samples are unsuitable for irrigation. SAR values shows that 52% of the samples indicate high-to-very high and low-to-medium alkali water. KI values indicate good quality (30%) and not suitable (70%) for irrigation purposes. RSC values indicate that 89% of samples are suitable for irrigation purposes. MH reveals that 17% suitable and 83% samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes and for domestic purposes the excellent (8%), good (48%), and poor (44%). The agricultural waste, fertilizer used, soil leaching, urban runoff, livestock waste, and sewages are the sources of poor water quality. Some samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes due to high salinity, hardness, and magnesium concentration. In general, the groundwater of the Salem district was polluted by agricultural activities, anthropogenic activities, ion exchange, and weathering. Keywords Geochemistry Á Water quality index Á Wilcox diagram Á Kelley index Á Magnesium hazard Á Residual sodium carbonate Á USSL diagram

Evaluation of drinking water quality using the water quality index (WQI), the synthetic pollution index (SPI) and geospatial tools in Thatta district, Pakistan

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Assessment of urban groundwater quality using Piper trilinear and multivariate techniques: a case study in the Abuja, North-central, Nigeria

“…Also, the Table 6 Statistical characteristics of discriminant grouping and WHO limit identified major water types and their ionic composition of different groundwater water samples. The sodium-chloride and calcium-chloride are rich in these regions because the parent rock are of Fissile Hornblende Biotite gneiss and Charnockite, which have composed of sodium and calcium rich minerals (Arulbalaji and Gurugnanam 2017).…”

“…Many of the study centered on evaluating the natural concentrations of several metals and ions in groundwater, to segregate natural and anthropogenic sources that interrupt groundwater quality, and found interfaces that take place in the aquifer (e.g., Chen et al 2016;Cao et al 2016;Ehya and Marbouti 2016;Gu et al 2015). The findings of groundwater previous studies (Arulbalaji and Gurugnanam 2017;Cao et al 2016;Ojekunle et al 2016;Li et al 2015) concludes that quick population growth, unplanned municipal development, agricultural activities, insufficient hydrogeochemical knowledge, and poor groundwater quality management, are some major factors responsible for groundwater quality control.…”

Geospatial tool-based morphometric analysis using SRTM data in Sarabanga Watershed, Cauvery River, Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India

“…The study area is geologically comprised by fissile hornblende biotite gneiss (Arulbalaji and Gurugnanam 2016a) and geomorphologically covered by pediment pediplain complex. The Sarabanga watershed has good groundwater potential zone (Arulbalaji and Gurugnanam 2016b). The location map of the study is given in Fig.…”