Hydrogeochemical assessment of groundwater quality in parts of the Hindon River basin, Ghaziabad, India: implications for domestic and irrigation purposes

The present study confers the hydrogeochemical characteristics and groundwater quality assessment for drinking and irrigational purposes. Most of the population depends on groundwater for their daily needs especially for drinking, irrigation, and industrial purposes. For this reason, total seventy-two groundwater samples have been collected from different parts of Ghaziabad district for the pre- and post-monsoon in the year 2016 and analyzed for water quality parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, total hardness, bicarbonate (HCO3−), carbonate (CO32−), chloride (Cl−), sulphate (SO42−), fluoride (F−), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sodium (Na+), and potassium (K+). Results show that the water samples of the study area are generally hard to very hard and slightly acidic to alkaline in nature. Results also suggest that chloride (Cl−) ions dominate over SO42− ions, whereas HCO3− ions dominate over Cl− and SO42− in the studied groundwater samples during the pre- and post-monsoon periods. The Piper trilinear diagram of groundwater shows that dominant facies is Na+–HCO3− type in both the monsoon periods. The nitrate concentration in the groundwater samples varies from 22 to 293 mg/l in the pre-monsoon, of which 83% of groundwater samples are not recommended for drinking with reference to the concentration of nitrate. Base-exchange indices classified 89% and 11% of the water sources as the Na-HCO3 type and Na-SO4 during the pre- and post-monsoon seasons, respectively. According to the meteoric genesis indices, 89% and 11% of the water sources as shallow meteoric water percolation and deep meteoric water percolation type during the pre- and post-monsoon periods, respectively. Furthermore, most of the groundwater samples are found mainly influenced by rock dominance according to Gibbs diagram plots.