Assessment of groundwater quality in the Bokoya Massif (Central Rif, Northern Morocco) using several analytical techniques

Since ancient times, groundwater exploitation has been the ideal and least expensive means of stabilizing populations and avoiding migratory flows, especially in rural and arid areas. However, the uncontrolled extraction and use of groundwater can lead to contamination by natural processes or human activities. In this work, we studied the quality of groundwater sources in the Bokoya Massif, Morocco. During April 2018, a total of 96 water samples were taken from 81 wells and 15 springs distributed across the entire massif. Various physicochemical analyses of the samples were performed, including analyses of EC, TDS, HCO3−, SO42−, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, PO43−, NO3−, NO2−, NH4+, and Cl−. These analyses showed that the water samples were neutral to slightly basic and strongly mineralized. From a potability perspective, the main issues with the studied groundwater sources were their hardness (98% of the water samples were hard or very hard) and their high nitrate concentrations (36% of the samples exceeded the nitrate limit specified by the World Health Organization). The nitrate concentrations were higher in the samples taken in urbanized areas. In terms of their suitability for irrigation, only 41 of the samples (42.7%) presented water quality ranging from excellent to permissible according to the Wilcox classification. In addition to this quality problem, the flow from each source decreased by an average of of 73% during the dry period, with 24 of the water sources drying up completely.