Abstract
Groundwater (GW) vulnerability maps have become a standard tool for protecting groundwater resources from pollution because, from one hand groundwater represents the main source of drinking water, and on the other hand high concentrations of human activities such industrial, agricultural, and household represent real or potential sources of groundwater contamination. The main objective of this study is to assess the groundwater vulnerable zones in Herat city, which is the second fastest growing big city in Afghanistan, using the DRASTIC model and fuzzy logic. DRASTIC is based on the seven data layers i.e. Depth of water, net Recharge, Aquifer media, Soil media, Topography, Impact of vadose zone and hydraulic Conductivity that provide the input to the modeling. The study shows that 51% of the city’s groundwater is under highly vulnerable to water pollution. Validation of model showed that vulnerability map which integrated by kriging interpolated layers has better accuracy than inverse distance weighing (IDW) method. The study suggests, that the proposed model can be an effective tool for local authorities who are responsible for managing groundwater resources especially in Afghanistan and assigning rating value of DRASTIC parameters using inference system of fuzzy logic.
Highlights
Most of GW related problems generally focus on the water contamination and quality reduction which depend to factors such as urbanization, industrialization, irregular use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, nonstandard disposal of wastewater and increment of population
The results indicate that GW in Herat city in most parts is in the vulnerable to high vulnerable zones
The study showed that 51.09 % of the total research area in final vulnerability map, i.e. Fig. 2b is under the high vulnerable zone
Summary
Most of GW related problems generally focus on the water contamination and quality reduction which depend to factors such as urbanization, industrialization, irregular use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, nonstandard disposal of wastewater and increment of population. Groundwater quality protection is a vital and important theme specially, in high growing urban areas. It is necessity to define which systems and hydrogeological models are most suitable to use for groundwater quality protection. GW vulnerability assessment can be noted as a preventive function for protection of GW quality prior to start monitoring of groundwater resource in the area. This approach has been widely used for GW vulnerability to pollution
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