Understanding the influence of industrial and agricultural land uses on groundwater quality in semiarid region of Solapur, India

Abstract

A comprehensive groundwater quality investigation of 98 representative groundwater samples collected from Chincholi MIDC area has been carried out to identify the impact of different land uses on groundwater quality during pre- and post-monsoon seasons of 2014. Hydrochemical results confirm that groundwater is slightly alkaline and hard to very hard type. The contents of TDS, Na, Ca, NO3 and K exceeded the permissible limit prescribed by BIS in industrial land use in both the seasons. The ionic ratios suggest that silicate weathering is dominant hydro-geochemical process followed by carbonate weathering and ion exchange. The correlation and principal component analysis identifies the relation among different parameters and mixed sources of ionic constituents. The cluster analysis differentiates the samples affected due to anthropogenic activities through the classification of groundwater samples in different clusters, and principal component analysis identifies the EC, Ca, Mg, Cl, NO3, TH and TDS as major causative factors. The spatiotemporal maps depict the enrichment of specific ions mainly observed at industrial and agricultural sites. Samples located in industrial area vicinity are not suitable for drinking and irrigation. From an industrial perspective, groundwater is corrosive and incrusting in nature. Groundwater sample numbers 14 and 15 located in agricultural area and 29, 30, 41, 42, 43 and 47 in the vicinity of industrial area found problematic represent that the change in water quality is caused due to alteration in land use type. Therefore, it becomes immensely important to identify the negatively impacted groundwater quality and mitigate the cause.