Assessment of the impact of land-cover change on water quality: case study of the Chiba watershed, Nabeul, Tunisia
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(2020) 5:57
ORIGINAL PAPER
Assessment of the impact of land‑cover change on water quality: case study of the Chiba watershed, Nabeul, Tunisia Souhail Dhaouadi1,2 · Mohamed Kefi1 · Wafa Tarkhani3,4 · Talel Stambouli2 · Anis Chkirbene4 Received: 29 April 2020 / Accepted: 8 August 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Water scarcity and water quality degradation are important problems that can affect human well-being. Population growth, unplanned urbanization, land-cover change, and the intensification of agricultural and industrial activities are the main reasons for water resource issues. The main aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of land-cover change on groundwater quality in the Chiba watershed, Nabeul, Tunisia. A remote-sensing technique was used to identify the principal transitions in land cover between 1998 and 2018. Additionally, four water quality indicators (electrical conductivity, chloride concentration, nitrate concentration, and sodium absorption ratio) were utilized to investigate variations in water quality in the study area. It was found that most of the watershed was covered with agricultural land in 1998 (87.5%) and 2018 (88.6%). Based on a comparison of these two periods, various types of land-cover transitions were observed. Moreover, the water quality indicators revealed that the salinity hazard and nitrate contamination in the watershed were high. The spatial relationship between water contamination level and land-cover transition category indicated that barren land to built-up land transitions had the strongest negative effect on water quality among all of the main land-cover transitions. Demonstrating the impact of land-cover change on water quality should encourage local decision makers and water managers to implement strategies for sustainable urban planning and periurban agriculture. Keywords Land-cover transition · Water quality · Remote sensing · Spatial analysis
Introduction
Communicated by Mohamed Ksibi, Co-Editor in Chief. This paper was selected from the Tunisia–Japan Symposium on Science, Society and Technology (TJASSST 2019), Sousse, Tunisia. * Mohamed Kefi [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Desalination and Natural Water Valorization, Water Research and Technologies Center CERTE, Technopark of Borj Cedria, BP 273, 8020 Soliman, Tunisia
2
Department of Agricultural Production, Higher School of Agriculture, Mograne, University of Carthage, 1121 Mograne, Zaghouan, Tunisia
3
Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science of Bizerte, University of Carthage, 7021 Zarzouna, Bizerte, Tunisia
4
Georesources Laboratory, Water Research and Technologies Center CERTE, Technopark Borj Cedria, BP 273, 8020 Soliman, Tunisia
Climate change, rapid urbanization, population growth, and the intensification of agricultural and industrial activities are considered the main reasons for water resource issues such as water shortages and water quality degradation. More than 2 billion people live in countries that are experiencing high water stress (FA
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