Geochemical evaluation of groundwater quality for drinking and irrigation purposes in Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Twenty three groundwater samples collected from various locations of Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh, India, were analyzed to review numerous quality parameters for their suitability for drinking and irrigation purposes. The suitability of the groundwater for drinking analyzed with reference to World Health Organization (WHO). The most of the chemical parameters (pH, TDS, hardness, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, HCO3-,Cl-, SO42-, NO3-, B- and F-) are within the permissible limit of WHO for drinking water. The interpretation of analytical data showed that CaMgHCO3 is the dominant hydro-chemical facies in the area. Gibbs plot specifies that all the samples fall in rock dominance. The suitability of groundwater for irrigation purpose is assessed by various criteria like residual sodium carbonate (RSC), percent sodium (% Na), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), magnesium ratio (MR), permeability index (PI), Kelly’s index (KI), US salinity diagram and Wilcox classification. All these criteria showed that groundwater is excellent to good and suitable for irrigation purpose in the study area.