Abstract
Assessing groundwater vulnerability to contamination is vital worldwide, particularly in sustainable water resources management. That is mainly a concern in fractured media in urban areas due to a large diversity of contaminant sources and the complexity of recharge pathways. Thus, groundwater vulnerability assessment is essential to delineate groundwater protection zones around springs or wellheads. Furthermore, it considers the groundwater system’s heterogeneity and the surrounding hydrogeological conditions, as well as provides suitable solutions to protect the resource and mitigate potential hazards. DISCO-URBAN index focused on urban areas was applied to evaluate the intrinsic vulnerability in fractured media in the surroundings of Penafiel city (NW Portugal). The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weight of each evaluation factor. Furthermore, multi-criteria indexes were applied: GOD‐S, DRASTIC‐Fm, SI DISCO and DISCO-URBAN. Low to moderate vulnerability classes dominate in the combined approach of the vulnerability indexes. However, very high vulnerability classes occur in DISCO and DISCO-URBAN, corroborated by the water-enriched nitrates. Therefore, the DISCO-URBAN method highlights a better delineation of groundwater safeguard zones. In fact, the DISCO-URBAN index is reliable in urban areas to be integrated as a tool to develop local site hydrogeological investigations related to springs safeguard zones.
Highlights
Urbanisation shifts topography, vegetation, stream flows, and flooding characteristics, affecting groundwater quantity and quality
It is necessary to evaluate groundwater vulnerability to contamination in fractured media to be integrated as a tool for urban planning and the sustainable management of groundwater resources in urban areas (e.g., [1–6])
This study aims to present an original study on a local scale-site (Penafiel urban area, NW Portugal), focused on the importance of the DISCO-URBAN methodology to delineate groundwater safeguard zones around springs galleries and a high-resolution vulnerability protection mapping based on Geographic Information System (GIS)-based mapping and geovisualisation techniques
Summary
Urbanisation shifts topography, vegetation, stream flows, and flooding characteristics, affecting groundwater quantity and quality. The study area is in Penafiel municipality in NW Portugal. This municipality has 22.5 km with 15,700 inhabitants [53], corresponding to a low population density (697 people/km). The Santa Marta springs are located in the NE part of the Penafiel municipality, mainly built in the urban fabric. A length underground gallery mines dug in rock media access Santa Marta springs. The bedrock of the Penafiel is constituted by granitic rocks (fissured media), especially porphyritic two-mica coarse-grained granite, wide to moderate fracturing, slight to moderate weathered, and very low to low permeability (Fig. 1b, Table 1). The crystalline bedrock is outcropped by dolerite dykes and sedimentary cover (alluvia), related to
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