Prediction of groundwater vulnerability to contamination using fuzzy model and GIS

Abstract

Groundwater is an important resource that people have relied on for drinking, irrigation and industry Due to increase in population, industrialization and urbanization the groundwater resources are greatly affected The problems to be solved by groundwater managers and engineers are overexploitation groundwater level depletion contamination of groundwater and salt water intrusion The quality of groundwater in Coimbatore district has deteriorated to a greater extent nowadays The aims of this study are to determine the quality of groundwater for drinking and irrigational purposes to find the seasonal variations in groundwater quality to determine the contaminants in groundwater to determine the sources of contamination and to develop a model that can predict the contaminant using Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System and Geographical Information System From water quality test for drinking the groundwater in the study area was found to be alkaline in nature Groundwater in most of the study area was found to fall under the categories hard or very hard Suitability of groundwater for irrigation was determined by Sodium Adsorption Ratio Percent Sodium and Residual Sodium Carbonate Based on the results the groundwater in the study area was found to be suitable for irrigational purpose The seasonal variations in the groundwater quality of Coimbatore district during the year 2011 were analyzed during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon periods using Geographical Information System Based on the Water Quality Index the samples were categorized as excellent good poor very poor and unsuitable for drinking From the results it was found that Sulur taluk had high degradation of groundwater quality from pre monsoon to post monsoon periods due to industrial or domestic effluents newline