Electrical resistivity tomography for assessment of groundwater salinity in west Delhi, India
- PDF / 6,074,778 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 20 Downloads / 209 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Electrical resistivity tomography for assessment of groundwater salinity in west Delhi, India Partha Pratim Adhikary & H. Chandrasekharan & S. K. Dubey & S. M. Trivedi & Ch. Jyotiprava Dash
Received: 12 December 2013 / Accepted: 31 March 2014 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2014
Abstract Indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals for intensive agriculture is mainly responsible for deterioration of groundwater quality in west Delhi of India. Geophysical and hydrochemical investigations were carried out to decipher subsurface geologic formation and assess groundwater salinity. Electrical resistivity tomography surveys revealed the presence of potential groundwater zones at 20–30 m below ground level. The groundwater quality was moderate to poor as evidenced from the low resistivity value of the potential aquifer. Only 20.2 % of the study area showed good quality groundwater potentiality, situated at few pockets in eastern, western, and northern parts of the study area. Low resistivity formation at southern part of the study area was due to infiltration of highly polluted drain water along with fertilizer rich surface water to the aquifer. Hydrochemical investigation also confirmed the result. The average electrical conductivity of groundwater was around 5,950 μS cm−1. Longitudinal unit conductance and transverse unit resistance values were calculated and used for delineation of saline groundwater zones. A direct relationship between longitudinal unit conductance and groundwater salinity made it possible to develop empirical equations by which salinity can be predicted from computed P. P. Adhikary : H. Chandrasekharan : S. K. Dubey : S. M. Trivedi : C. J. Dash Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi 110012, India Present Address: P. P. Adhikary (*) : C. J. Dash Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Research centre, Sunabeda, Koraput, Odisha 763002, India e-mail: [email protected] Present Address: S. K. Dubey Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Research centre, Agra 282006, Uttar Pradesh, India
longitudinal unit conductance value. It helps for periodic monitoring of the pollution level by spending less labour and money and benefits immensely the policy makers. The article suggests further study and research work that can lead to sustainable exploitation/use and management of groundwater resources in west Delhi. Keywords Resistivity tomography . Groundwater salinity . Delhi . Hydrochemistry
Introduction Proper assessment of groundwater quality and quantity is necessary for scientific planning and management of this important natural resource. Groundwater occurs in a wide range of rock types and usually requires little or no treatment. Deterioration of groundwater quality is related to anthropogenic activities like municipal garbage disposal (Parameswari and Mudgal 2013), industrial waste deposits (Arnous and El-Rayes 2013) and use of domestic sewage and indiscriminate spraying of pesticides and fertilizers (Farhadinejad et a
Data Loading...
