Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Geophysical Expression for Groundwater
Quality in Part of Chittoor District, Andhra
Pradesh, India
S.Md. Farooq Basha
Introduction
Water quality is a consequence of the natural, physical and chemical state of the
water as well as any alterations that may have occurred as interference by human
activity. The minerals contained in soils and rocks are also commonly responsible
for the type of quality of ground water in a region. Quality of ground water has
gained much importance as its quantity. Growing population, urbanization,
industrialization, increased social and agricultural activities are increasing the
demand of potable groundwater, as such making us to think of water in terms of
quality.
Geophysical methods are widely used to locate aquifers in different lithological
formations. These methods play a vital role in locating the groundwater tables and
in reducing the infructuous amount of drilling expenditures by eliminating the non-
feasible locations where the negative indications are recorded. In surface geophysi-
cal methods, certain physical properties and parameters of subsurface formations
are measured by instruments located on the surface. The success of these methods
depends on how best the physical parameters deduced are interpreted in terms of
hydrogeological language. As the geophysical characteristic or its range is not
unique to hydrogeological parameters, one or more alternatives arise from which a
choice has to be made on the basis of knowledge of hydrogeology of the area. At
times, a combination of two or more methods may have to be chosen (Karanth
1995). The Electrical Resistivity Method is one of the geophysical methods which
are extensively used and play a vital role in the groundwater mapping and ground-
water exploration. Water-bearing and water-barren formations are identifiable based
on the contrast in the electrical resistivity (Zohdy
1974
). In this paper an attempt is
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