Geochemical appraisal of groundwater qualities and its uses in and around Maneswar Block of Sambalpur District, Odisha, India

Abstract

The present study aims to approach the analysis of groundwater samples of the western part of Odisha, i.e. Maneswar Block of Sambalpur District to assess the quality of groundwater in terms of drinking and irrigation purposes. Altogether, 34 groundwater samples were collected from the Maneswar Block during the pre-monsoon period in 2017. The collected samples were analysed for different physicochemical parameters. The result of the chemical analysis revealed that the dominant hydrochemical facies for cation is Ca2+ > Na+ > Mg2+ > K+ and the dominant hydrochemical facies for anion is HCO3− > Cl− > SO42− > CO32−. The groundwater of the area is suitable for irrigation purposes except the areas having high %Na. Similarly, the water is suitable for drinking purposes in most of the cases except few where the TDS value is high. The multivariate hydrogeochemical data were plotted in various graphs and diagrams to depict the quality of groundwater of the study area. In both Piper’s trilinear and Chadha’s diagram, the groundwater samples indicate “alkaline earths exceed alkalies”. Gibbs diagram demonstrates that most of the samples fall on the “Rock dominance” and few samples fall on “Evaporation crystallization dominance” field.