Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Awawdeh, Muheeb M.
• Jaradat, Rasheed A.

Titel

Evaluation of aquifers vulnerability to contamination in the Yarmouk River basin, Jordan, based on DRASTIC method

Ist Teil von

• Arabian journal of geosciences, 2010-08, Vol.3 (3), p.273-282

Ort / Verlag

Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The existing different human activities and planned land uses put the groundwater resources in Jordan at considerable risk. There are evidences suggesting that the quality of groundwater supplies in north Jordan is under threat from a wide variety of point and non-point sources including agricultural, domestic, and industrial. Vulnerability maps are designed to show areas of greatest potential for groundwater contamination on the basis of hydrogeological conditions and human impacts. DRASTIC method incorporates the major geological and hydrogeological factors that affect and control groundwater movement: depth to groundwater ( D ), net recharge ( R ), lithology of the aquifer ( A ), soil texture ( S ), topography ( T ), lithology of vadose zone ( I ), and hydraulic conductivity ( C ). The main goal of this study is to produce vulnerability maps of groundwater resources in the Yarmouk River basin by applying the DRASTIC method to determine areas where groundwater protection or monitoring is critical. ArcGIS 9.2 was used to create the groundwater vulnerability maps by overlaying the available hydrogeological data. The resulting vulnerability maps were then integrated with lineament and land use maps as additional parameters in the DRASTIC model to assess more accurately the potential risk of groundwater to pollution. The general DRASTIC index indicates that the potential for polluting groundwater is low in the whole basin, whereas the resulting pesticide DRASTIC vulnerability map indicates that about 31% of the basin is classified as having moderate vulnerability, which may be attributed to agricultural activities in the area. Although high nitrate concentrations were found in areas of moderate vulnerability, DRASTIC method did not depict accurately the nitrate distribution in the area.