Geophysical Expression for Groundwater Quality in Part of Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, India - Management of Natural Resources in a Changing Environment - page 38

Fig. 1 Index map of study area
made to find a relation between the Dar-Zarrouk, parameter, longitudinal unit
conductance ( S ) and primary hydrogeochemical parameters.
The study area shown in Fig. 1 falls in some parts of Chittoor district which is the
southernmost district of Andhra Pradesh. It covers an area of 674 sq. km and lies
between the geographical coordinates of north latitude 13° 27′ 48″ and 13° 41′ 10″
and east longitudes 79° 13′ 36″ and 79° 38′ 40″ covering the parts of topographical
sheet numbers 57O/2, 57O/6, 57O/7, 57O/10 in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.
Swarnamukhi river flows in the study area. The river originates in Panapakam hill
ranges and flows south-westerly through parts of Thottambedu Mandal of Chittoor
district and finally joins the Bay of Bengal to the south of the Nellore town. The
total area of the river basin is ~3,225 km 2 . However, a part of the basin, an area of
~674 km 2 has been covered in the present study. The study area has hot and semi-arid
climate, the mean annual temperature is 29 °C, average annual rainfall is recorded
as 375-750 mm and the wind speed is in the range of 5-9 km/h.
Geophysical Expression for Groundwater Quality
The electrical resistivity method is widely used in locating the groundwater potential
zones. Groundwater quality is being chemically analyzed in the laboratory to assess
and recommend the same for drinking, industrial and agricultural purposes. This is
the most accurate method. However for mapping groundwater quality for large