Impact of intensive agricultural practices on drinking water quality in the EVROS Region (NE GREECE) by GIS analysis

Abstract

Chemical fertilizers are used extensively in modern agriculture, in order to improve yield and productivity of agricultural products. However, nutrient leaching from agricultural soil into groundwater resources poses a major environmental and public health concern. The Evros region is one of the largest agricultural areas in Northern Greece, extending over 1.5 million acres of cultivated land. Many of its drinking water resources are of groundwater origin and lie within agricultural areas. In order to assess the impact of agricultural fertilizers on drinking water quality in this region, tap-water samples from 64 different locations were collected and analyzed for the presence of nitrates (NO(3)(-)), nitrites (NO(2)(-)), ammonium (NH(4)(+)), sulfate (SO(4)(-2)) and phosphate (PO(4)(-3)). These chemicals were selected based on the information that ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate and inorganic phosphate were the primary fertilizers used in local crop production. NO(3)(-), SO(4)(-2) and PO(4)(-3) levels exceeding accepted values were recorded in 6.25, 4.70 and 9.38% of all sampling points, respectively. NO(2)(-) and NH(4)(+) concentrations, on the other hand, were inside the permitted range. The data generated were introduced into a geographic information system (GIS) program for computer analysis and projection maps representing afflicted areas were created. Our results indicate a profound geographic correlation in the surface distribution of primary contaminants in areas of intensified agricultural production. Thus, drinking water pollution in these areas can be attributed to excessive fertilizer use from agricultural sources.

Water Quality Changes during Rapid Urbanization in the Shenzhen River Catchment: An Integrated View of Socio-Economic and Infrastructure Development

“…In order to obtain an overall understanding of the combined effect of the changes in the target indicator values a composite indicator-Water Pollution Index (WPI)-was used to assess the comprehensive status of the water quality of the Shenzhen River. The index is defined as follows [18,19]: (1) where n represents the number of water quality parameters; Ci is the average measured concentration of the ith parameter, mg/L; and Si is the MPC for the ith parameter. The water quality can be classified into six types by WPI: very pure, pure, moderately polluted, polluted, impure and heavily impure with corresponding WPI values of below 0.3, 0.3-1.0, 1.0-2.0, 2.0-4.0, 4.0-6.0 and over 6.0, respectively [18].…”

Water quality evaluation system to assess the status and the suitability of the Citarum river water to different uses

“…The runoff from paddy field as verified in the Ile de Camargue, France, carries important loads of dissolved pesticides to the wetlands including river (Comoretto et al 2008). Drinking water pollution in the Evros region Northern Greece can be attributed to excessive fertilizer use from agricultural sources (Nikolaidis et al 2008).…”

Temporal and spatial variation of chemical parameter concentration in drinking water resources of Bandar-e Gaz City using Geographic Information System

“…These maps can determine the temporal and spatial fluctuations of water resources and show trends of future change [7]. Many studies on the quality of groundwater using GIS technology have been carried out globally and in Iran [8][9][10][11][12][13].…”