Assessment of groundwater vulnerability and risk to pollution in Con Dao island, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Vietnam

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Abstract The assessment of groundwater vulnerability has been widely used to manage and prevent groundwater from contamination risk. This study applied the model of GIS-based GALDIT was for groundwater vulnerability and risk assessment in a coastal district of Con Dao island, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Vietnam. The Groundwater Risk Assessment Model (GRAM) was used to assess the risk of groundwater pollution in the study region. The GALDIT model used six hydrogeological components to generate a GALDIT Index map, which illustrates how vulnerable the local groundwater is to contamination. The platform of GIS-based GRAM was exploited to construct risk maps related to salinity intrusion, hazard release, and hazard consequences. According to the findings, more than 80% of the groundwater in Con Dao district is vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, with the greatest concentration in the district’s central section. Only 18.12% of the district, in the Co Ong region to the northeast of the Con Dao district, has low or very low susceptibility. However, after accounting for contamination barriers and the capacity to identify and detect risks, it was shown that most areas, or around 87% of the study area, had transitioned to a low-risk level of groundwater pollution. The groundwater vulnerability and risk maps created serve as baseline information for decision-makers in governance and planning to effectively monitor and protect groundwater resources from pollution.