Assessing groundwater vulnerability and its inconsistency with groundwater quality, based on a modified DRASTIC model: a case study in Chaoyang District of Beijing City

Depth to water, net recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, impact of the vadose zone media, and hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer (DRASTIC) model based on a geographic information system (GIS) is the most widely adopted model for the evaluation of groundwater vulnerability. However, the model had its own disadvantages in various aspects. In this work, several methods and the technologies have been introduced to improve on the traditional model. The type of the aquifer was replaced by the thickness of the aquifer, and the index of topography was removed. The indexes of the exploitation of the groundwater and the type of land use that reflected the special vulnerability were added to the system. Furthermore, considering the wideness of the study area, the fixed weights in the DRASTIC model were not suitable. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and an entropy weight (Ew) method were introduced to calculate the weights of parameters. Then, the Spearman Rho correlation coefficients between IVI and the Nemerow synthetical pollution index (NI) of the groundwater quality were significantly improved, after the four steps of modification. The level differences with little gaps between Nemerow comprehensive pollution indexes and groundwater vulnerability occupied the proportion of the area from 75.68 to 84.04%, and finally, a single-parameter sensitivity analysis for the two models was used to compute the effective weights of these parameters. By comparison, the DRMSICEL model seems to perform better than the DRASTIC model in the study area. And the results show discrepancies between the vulnerability indices and groundwater quality as indicated by existence of vulnerable areas with bad water quality and vice versa.