GIS-BASED EVALUATION OF GROUNDWATER VULNERABILITY IN

AN ALLUVIAL AQUIFER, A CASE STUDY FROM IRAN

L. Khodapanah1, W. N. A. Sulaiman1, S. Ibrahim1, M. Saatsaz1

1
Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra
Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Email: leyla.khodapanah@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Iran is a semi-arid country with limited recharge to groundwater resources. Groundwater

however is a major source of water for domestic, industrial and agricultural uses. There is
therefore the need to ensure that the groundwater resources are of drinking quality, by protecting
them against pollution sources such as urban sewage, industries, agricultural pesticides and
waste. A preliminary assessment of vulnerability to groundwater contamination in Eshtehard
aquifer was undertaken. Information on the hydraulic confinement, overlying strata in terms of
their lithological character and depth to groundwater table (or to groundwater strike in confined
aquifers) that affect and control groundwater contamination were incorporated into the GOD
model, to produce groundwater vulnerability maps. Geographical Information System (GIS) was
used for indexing and overlaying the different data sources and to create a groundwater
vulnerability map. The final vulnerability map indicated that the northern parts of aquifer are
highly vulnerable to groundwater contamination.

Keywords: Groundwater vulnerability; GOD method; GIS; Iran

Introduction

Reliance on groundwater has increased dramatically in Iran as a semiarid country over past three

decades. The quality of groundwater of some area is generally affected by a variety of

anthropogenic activities in such regions. Industrial discharge, agriculture pesticides and

fertilizers, waste disposal sites, and municipal waste pose a great danger to groundwater resources

quality. There is therefore the need to ensure that the groundwater resources are of drinking

quality, by protecting them against pollution sources. The potential for groundwater

contamination to occur is affected by the physical characteristics of the area, the chemical nature
of the pollutant, the frequency and the method of application (Aller, et al., 1987). Since ground

water remediation is very expensive and in many cases impractical due to spatial variability and

data constrains, precluding of contamination is critical for effective ground water management.

Ground water vulnerability assessment has the ability to delineate areas, which are more likely

than others to become polluted as a result of anthropogenic activities at or near the land surface

(Vrba and Zaporozec, 1994). The groundwater vulnerability to pollution can be defined, in

agreement with the conclusions and recommendations of the international conference on

"Vulnerability of Soil and Groundwater to Pollutants", held in 1987 in The Netherlands as the

sensitivity of groundwater quality to an imposed contaminant load, which is determined by the

intrinsic characteristics of the aquifer (Duijvenbooden and Waegeningh, 1987). Many

approaches have been developed to evaluate aquifer vulnerability. They include process-based

methods, statistical methods, and overlay and index methods (Tesoriero et al., 1998). A classic

method of creating a vulnerability map is the GOD (Groundwater hydraulic

confinement/Overlaying strata/Depth to groundwater table) method (Foster, 1987). This method

considers the soil and unsaturated zone without taking into account the transport processes in the

saturated zone. This paper aims to assess aquifer vulnerability to pollution of Eshtehrad plain

using GOD method.

This approach was made by taking advantage of GIS software which permitted the compilation of

geospatial data, to compute GOD index, and to generate the final vulnerability map.

Study Area

The Eshtehard plain located in the west of Tehran covers an area of about 480 km2. The study

area lies between latitudes 3534' and 3547' north and 4816' and 4850' east (Fig.1). This region

has a semi-arid climate, with large temperature and rainfall variations. The average annual
temperature and rainfall are about 14.7 C and 227 mm, respectively. The basin elevation ranges

from 1140 to 1410 m above mean sea level. The dominant industries are food, soap, fish powder

and asphalt manufacturing. Most agricultural lands including fruit gardens, corns and vegetable

cultivation are practiced in the northern side of the study area. Thus, the water quality will be

affected by diffuse contamination originating from these activities.

The aquifer and the vadose zone of the Eshtehard region are located in Quaternary layer system

which constitutes mainly alluvial fan, gravel, sand, silt and clay with high permeability. Hence, it

results in an easy infiltration of pollutants into the groundwater system. The annual abstraction of

aquifer by pumpage from 478 wells stands at 36.4 million m3 yr1 (Lar, 2006).

There is also an evidence to suggest that the quality of groundwater supplies is under threat as a

result of salinisation. Salinity measures are generally of 7505000 mhos cm-1 in the majority of

the alluvial aquifer, and exceed 10000 mhos cm-1 in the northern and northeastern parts of the

study area (Khodapanah et al., 2009). For these reasons, a new strategy on water management

planning is highly required.

 Figure 1: Location of the study area and Land use map
Methodology

Many approaches have been developed to assess groundwater vulnerability and it can be divided

into three major categories: overlay and index methods, process-based methods, and statistical

methods (National Research Council, 1993). The method chosen for vulnerability assessment will

depend on factors such as the scale of the study area, data availability, and the specific results

desired (Tesoriero et al., 1998). In this work the GOD method was used to assess the Eshtehard

aquifer vulnerability. This method has a simple and pragmatic structure. It is a rating system that

assesses vulnerability by means of three variables: groundwater occurrence (G), overall lithology

of aquifer (O) and depth to groundwater table (D). Although this method uses smaller number of

parameters than other approaches, this does not imply that it is a less convincing method (Afonso

et al., 2008). It is always necessary to compare different approaches and to verify their
applicability. In some areas, the less complex method may prove to be more accurate or be

equally accurate with less labour (Micha Sigrist, 2008). The range of values for each rating is

small, varying from 0 (minimum vulnerability) to 1 (maximum vulnerability). The final index is

obtained from the formula:

I=G.O.D

The value of the index may vary from 0 to 1 and five vulnerability classes are differentiated by

the method. Fig 3 illustrates the concept of creating a GOD vulnerability map.

Following the GOD flowchart, the area vulnerability index is computed by choosing first the

rating of groundwater occurrence parameter and then multiplying by the overlying lithology

rating as well as with the depth to water parameter rating. The overlying lithology parameter

contributes to the vulnerability index only in the case of unconfined aquifers. Because the

parameters can only take values from 0 to 1, the computation result is usually a value less than

the score assigned to each parameter. In the particular case where two parameters have a value

equal to 1, the vulnerability score is equal to the score of the third parameter (Gogu and

Dassargues, 2000).

Figure 2: Generation of an aquifer vulnerability map using the GOD method (Foster et al., 2002)
To create vulnerability map, information on the aquifer media, lithology of overlying layers

(vadose zone or confining beds) and depth to groundwater table (or to groundwater strike in

confined aquifers) were collected and interpreted from boreholes logs, piezometers, geoelectrical

profiles and pumping tests. For this, geology map at the 1:100000 scales and water levels since

2002 to 2009 from 24 piezometers were considered.

To indexing spatial information a variety of GIS analysis and geo-processing framework has been

applied using ArcGIS 9.2 software. This work can be greatly eased by using a GIS for overlaying

the different data sources. GIS allows spatial data gathering, at the same time, gives a means for

data processing such as geo-referencing, digitizing and spatial analysis.

Result and Discussion

On the basis of piezometric data, geology map, well logs and geoelectrical profiles the aquifer

pollution vulnerability was assessed in Eshtehard plain. According to geophysical studies and

well logs the aquifer is considered typically an unconfined aquifer. This aquifer generally consists

of Quaternary alluvial deposits. The deposits have been laid in approximately south-north

direction. In the southern to middle parts of the plain the alluvial deposits is composed mostly of

coarse-grain to mid-grain with less silt and clay, while in the northern part alluvium with silt and

clay grain size have been developed.

In general all aquifers are vulnerable to persistent, mobile contaminants; however natural aquifer

conditions such as high permeability and shallow water table increase the risk of contamination.

Conversely, areas of lower permeability and deeper water table offer the best protection against

contamination, largely due to longer travel time in the unsaturated zone that give attenuation

reactions more opportunity to occur. Hence the aquifer deposits was divided to 5 ranges and rated
from 0.4 to 0.8 (table 1). Figure 3 shows the reclassified map of Eshtehard aquifer based on

permeability characteristics.

Table 1: Rating values of the vulnerability parameters for GOD method for the study area

Parameter Ranges and Rates

G (groundwater occurrence) Range Quaternary Alluvial Deposits(Unconfined Aquifer)

Rating 1

O (overall lithology of aquifer) Range Alluvial Fan gravel and sand, silt and Silt and clay

sand clay clay

Rating 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4

D (depth to groundwater) Range <2 2-5 5 - 10 10 - 20 20 -50 50- 100 > 100

Rating 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4

For creating depth to groundwater map data from 24 observation wells in period 2002- 2009 was

used. The depth to water table in most of the study area ranges from less than 2 m in north and

northeast areas to more than 100 m in the south and middle parts of the aquifer. The layer was

converted to raster format and reclassified to 7 classes rating from 0.4 to 1.0 (table 1). The

resultant map is illustrated in figure 4.

Using the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Extension, the final vulnerability map was created (Fig. 5).

According the vulnerability map there is no very low very high vulnerability in the study area.

Most of the study area is assessed as having Moderate vulnerability (67.9%). Main sources of

pollutant namely Cultivation land and Industrial District fall in this category. High vulnerability

is assigned to just 0.1% of the study area. Low vulnerability covers about 32% of the study area.

It includes the clay flat in northern part of aquifer and some small areas in south with a thick

unsaturated zone and where over exploitation of groundwater have increased depth to water table.
The influence of water abstraction and therefore of the water table is clear in the maps obtained

by the GOD method. Vulnerability mapping with simple method like GOD with less parameter

seems very useful for land use management, using moderate and small scales that provide an

overall view. However, there is a need for methods with a larger scale to establish protection

zones for the aquifers.

Figure 3: Reclassified map of aquifer lithology

Figure 4: Reclassified map of depth to water table

Conclusion

A rating system method was applied for groundwater vulnerability to pollution in Eshtehard

aquifer. Based on the vulnerability map Eshtehard aquifer is more vulnerable in central and south
regions. The main pollutant sources are cultivation land in north and west of Eshtehard city and

Eshtehard Industrial District in south west of city. These sources are mainly in zones with

moderate vulnerability. Applying GOD method showed that the relatively simple methods could

provide similar results to the complex ones. It could be confirmed that this method are best suited

for designing large areas (used in land management).

The GIS technique has provided an efficient environment for analyses and high capabilities in

handling a large quantity of spatial data. GOD indexes were easily computed in GIS environment.

Figure 5: Aquifer vulnerability map based on GOD method

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