Trends in groundwater quality

Abstract

The term ‘trend’ takes on a variety of meanings for groundwater quality in both a temporal and spatial context. Most commonly, trends are thought of as changes over time at either a regional or localized spatial scale. Generally water quality managers are most interested in changes associated with some form of human activity. Carefully defining what is meant by ‘trend’ is a critical step in trend analysis and may be accomplished by formulating a statistical model which includes a trend component. Although there are a great many regional groundwater studies which provide a ‘snapshot’ description of water quality conditions over an area at one point in time, there are relatively few which consider changes over time and fewer still which include a statistical analysis of long-term trend. This review covers both regional and localized studies of groundwater quality around the world, including a few snapshots, but focusing primarily on those studies which include an evaluation of temporal changes in groundwater quality. The studies include national assessments, agricultural case studies (the largest group, mostly regional in scope), urban case studies, and point source and hazardous waste case studies.