Assessment of groundwater quality and its vulnerability for safe drinking purpose

ABSTRACT Groundwater is a main resource of drinking water in several parts of India. Its degradation poses a significant risk to water availability and human health, highlighting the importance of regularly evaluating groundwater quality in these regions. Thus, the significant aim of this study is to examine and map groundwater quality and its vulnerability for drinking purposes using the EWQI, PIG, and GOD methods. The quality of groundwater in the study area is found to be generally alkaline in nature. More than 20% of samples exceeded the desirable limit of TH. Correlations of major ions revealed that groundwater samples were distributed in the areas of silicate weathering and dolomite dissolution. The EWQI values vary from 33.74 to 62.22, with an average value of 41.54. The spatial distribution diagrams of hydrochemical parameters and EWQI represent poor water quality in southern and southern-western areas. The PIG ranged from 0.49 to 0.84, with an average value of 0.59. Moreover, the GOD method indicates that the southern part of the region has moderate vulnerability and demonstrates that groundwater level is the significant factor for the calculation of groundwater vulnerability.