Assessment of Groundwater Quality Using GIS and Various Water Quality Indices: A Case Study of the Shekhawati Region of Rajasthan, Northwest India

Abstract

Assessment of Groundwater quality using Water Quality Index (WQI) and Geographic Information System (GIS) was carried out in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. The results of 15 physico-chemical parameters were used for the calculation of WQI. The results indicated that WQI values range from 0 to 1304 and 0-11,701 for two different approaches used and thus indicates very poor groundwater quality status in the region. The Fuzzy method as a third approach was also used to generate a WQI and resulted in only 2 values. The geographical information system using the Inverse Distance Weighted method (IDW) delineated groundwater quality zones into good to very poor potential areas. The hierarchal cluster analysis identified anthropogenic contamination, natural mineralization, reverse cation exchange as the major processes controlling groundwater chemistry. From the correlation matrix, it could be said that Turbidity, Total Hardness as CaCO3, Ca hardness as CaCO3, Mg hardness as CaCO3, Chlorides as Cl-, Fluorides as F- and TDS are responsible for high WQI values in the region.