Contrast of aquifer vulnerability and water quality indices between a unconfined aquifer and a deep aquifer in arid zone
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Contrast of aquifer vulnerability and water quality indices between a unconfined aquifer and a deep aquifer in arid zones Oscar Guadalupe Almanza Tovar 1 & José Alfredo Ramos Leal 1 & José Tuxpan Vargas 1 & Guillermo de Jesús Hernández García 2 & Josué De Lara Bashulto 1 Received: 22 January 2019 / Accepted: 10 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The rapid population growth in urban areas stresses the underlying aquifers in both quantity and quality. The identification of aquifer vulnerability and quality characteristics help decision makers in managing groundwater resources and mitigating potential contamination pathways. For this purpose, the units composing complex aquifer systems should be evaluated separately due to their unique hydrogeological characteristics. In this study, two metrics were used to identify zones susceptible to groundwater pollution, these are the following: (1) aquifer vulnerability through DRASTIC; and (2) water quality using the water quality index (WQI) and the contamination index (Cd). These metrics were applied to a case study of an aquifer system in the Valley of San Luis Potosi (VSLP). The system consists of three units: (1) a unconfined aquifer; (2) a granular medium aquifer; and (3) a deep fractured aquifer. In this analysis, the granular medium and the deep fractured aquifer were grouped as one unit. Aquifer vulnerability in the unconfined aquifer has a high vulnerability in the urban area zone. Whereas, the middle-deep aquifer is classified as having a low to medium vulnerability. According to WQI and Cd indices, the unconfined aquifer is highly polluted due to its proximity to the urban area. On the other hand, the middle-deep aquifer shows excellent groundwater quality. These results are consistent with the hypothesis of limited to no hydraulic connection between the middle-deep aquifer and the unconfined aquifer. Keywords Vulnerability aquifer . DRASTIC . Water quality index (WQI) . Contamination Index (Cd) . Aquifer system
Introduction Surface water is scarce or nonexistent in arid region of the world, where groundwater is often the main source of supply for the development of human activities. Groundwater preservation at an acceptable quality is extremely important on these regions; therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the contaminant vulnerability of the underlying aquifer systems. An aquifer system is considered as a set of intercalated permeable and
* Oscar Guadalupe Almanza Tovar [email protected] 1
Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, Camino a la Presa San José #2055, Lomas 4ta. Secc., C.P. 78216 San Luis, Mexico
2
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04150 Coyoacán, CDMX, Mexico
less permeable material that acts as a water-yielding hydraulic unit of regional extent (Sato and Iwasa 2000). Vulnerability can be defined as intrinsic or specific. Intrinsic vulnerability is a characteristic of an aquifer that helps identify its susceptibility to anthropogenic and/or na
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