Groundwater chemical characteristics in the Taklimakan Desert

The Taklimakan Desert, located in the center of the Tarim Basin, northwest China, is the arid center of the Europe-Asia Continent. Due to the scarcity of surface water resources in the Taklimakan desert, the groundwater feeding water supply system was constructed by some ecological engineering and power engineering such as Tazhong Oilfield and the Shelter-forest Project of the Tarim Desert Highway in the hinterland of the desert. In this work, the chemistry data of shallow groundwater was obtained through positional observation section along Tarim Desert Highway in the Taklimakan desert and the main chemistry indicators of groundwater were carried out system analysis. The relationship between the major ions and TDS in the desert shallow groundwater was clarified by using descriptive statistical methods and correlation coefficient methods. The results were shown that the TDS in desert shallow groundwater was relatively high, its value ranged between 30.246 similar to 3.093 g/L. The spatial distribution characteristics were high in the north and lower in the south, and the south was slightly higher than central region.