Chapter 16 - Assessment of groundwater quality for irrigation purposes: A case study of Hooghly District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Groundwater is vital for human beings for different purposes including drinking and irrigation uses. The present study aims to evaluate the groundwater quality for irrigation purposes and determines the physical-chemical parameters of groundwater in the Hooghly district. In this regard, physical-chemical properties including major cations and anions of the 49 groundwater samples of the Hooghly district were collected from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) for the year 2019. In order to investigate the suitability of groundwater for irrigation, the eight important irrigation water indices such as sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), sodium percentage (%Na), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), soluble sodium percentage (SSP), magnesium hazard (MH), permeability index (PI), residual sodium bicarbonate (RSBC), and Kelley's ratio (KR) were used. Besides, the irrigation water quality index (IWQI) was employed to assess the suitability of water for irrigation purposes. In addition, the analytical results were used to generate the spatial distribution of the parameters with the help of geographical information system (GIS). The results illustrated that 26.53% of the sampled groundwater is of good quality, 61.22% of sample groundwater is poor, and 8.16% of the sampled groundwater is very poor, while only 4.08% of the groundwater samples account for unsuitable quality for irrigation use. The assessment of groundwater quality of the present study may be helpful for the sustainable management of water resources in such a water-stressed region.