Assessment of groundwater quality for drinking purpose with special emphasis on salinity and nitrate contamination in th
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Assessment of groundwater quality for drinking purpose with special emphasis on salinity and nitrate contamination in the shallow aquifer of Guenniche (Northern Tunisia) Nizar Troudi & Fadoua Hamzaoui-Azaza & Ourania Tzoraki & Fatheddine Melki & Mounira Zammouri
Received: 30 January 2020 / Accepted: 30 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Monitoring the groundwater quality situation and identifying the various pollution loads’ sources are a prerequisites to finding solutions. In many areas, nitrate and salinity are one of the prime pollutants in the groundwater. This investigation is carried to present the results of a monitoring study focusing on 20 wells samples collected from the shallow groundwater of Guenniche plain (North Tunisia) during the wet season of May 2016, to present its suitability for drinking purposes with emphasis on the assessment of the presence of nitrate and salinity elements. Nitrate levels’ results show that 55% of the samples exceeded the National Tunisian standard limit (NT) and the World Health Organization standard limit (WHO). The salinity results, measured as total dissolved solids (TDS), show that 95% of the samples exceed the international standard, and 25% exceed the national standard. A total of 20% of the wells exceeded the nitrite standards. The
total hardness levels indicate that 90% of the samples present very hard water. The Guenniche shallow groundwater average concentrations are categorized as follows: Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+ for the cations and Cl− > SO42− > HCO3− > NO3− for the anions. Nitrate and salinity variations during the period 2006–2015 follow the rainfall fluctuation patterns. The assessment of water quality using Water Quality Index revealed that 95% of the wells’ water classes ranged between “poor”, “very poor,” and “unsuitable for drinking purposes”. Therefore, these wells are affected by anthropogenic and/or natural factors and they are inadvisable for drinking purposes, unless the water from these wells undergoes appropriate treatment before use.
N. Troudi (*) : F. Hamzaoui-Azaza : M. Zammouri Laboratory of Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology (SBPG), LR18 ES07, Geology Department, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, Tunis 1060, Tunisia e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
O. Tzoraki Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece F. Melki Laboratory of Geodynamics, Geo-digital and Geomaterials (GGSA) Lab3G, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, 1060 Tunis, Tunisia
Keywords Guenniche . Shallow aquifer . Nitrate . Salinity . Water Quality Index
Access to drinking water in sufficient amounts and good quality is everyone’s right (United Nations 1977). Water is the key to life and human activity (Chen et al. 2017; Ameur et al. 2016; Fallah-Mehdipour et al. 2020). However, natural causes such as weathering and erosion of bedrocks, ore deposits, climate change, and anthropogenic activities (agriculture, urbanization, and industries) adversely affect and
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