No abstract

Physicochemical characteristics of groundwater provide vital information regarding prevailing geochemical, geomorphological and predominant pollution conditions in an area. In the present work, hydro-geochemical properties of ground water were examined at rural, urban and industrial areas of Kanpur to determine its aptness for drinking and irrigation. Groundwater samples were randomly collected from deep borewell pumps across the city. The samples were examined for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), nitrate, sulphate, chloride, hardness, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, sodium, potassium, calcium, which ranged between 7.10 and 8. −1 in post-monsoon season respectively. Water Quality Index of groundwater during post-monsoon were recorded to be better than the pre-monsoon season, reason being percolation of water during rainfall in monsoon. The pre and post-monsoon data provided valuable information regarding the suitability of groundwater for various purposes such as drinking and irrigation. Results showed 'fairly' and 'good' categories of water quality in the pre-monsoon season which further improved in post monsoon season. Results clearly specify that the natural process of groundwater recharge is an important mechanism to maintain the quality of groundwater.

The study focused to assess the groundwater in Madhavaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, for irrigational purposes. Irrigation indices like SAR, SSP, PI and KR was determined in each groundwater sample to identify its irrigational suitability. This study further envisaged that these groundwater aquifers have low Sodium adsorption ratio and hence groundwater is fit for irrigation, while residual sodium bicarbonate and Kelly’s ratio values indicated that majority of these aquifer have water of marginal to harmful quality against irrigation. The dominance pattern of cations in the studied ground water was in the order of Na > Ca > Mg > K and the sequence of anionic dominance was as follows: Cl > HCO3 > SO4. All 20 wells fall under the excellent category of SAR. SSP values of groundwater range from 49 to 71 and indicated that 15 wells are under permissible and 5 wells are under doubtful classification.  PI value indicated that groundwater is unsuitable against irrigation.  The KR indicated that groundwater quality in 18 wells is not fit for irrigation.  Hence, necessary pre-treatment methodology is to be adopted for utilizing groundwater for irrigation purpose.