Groundwater Quality Assessment in “AL JABAL AL AKHDAR Area”, Libya

The present study deals with the area of Al Jabal Al Akhdar (Green Mountain) in Libya in order to evaluate the current status of the groundwater contaminants and their sources in groundwater. Groundwater samples are collected from 10 wells at different locations and analyzed. The physicochemical parameters—including pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), calcium, magnesium, total hardness, sodium, potassium, nitrate, sulfate, iron, manganese, and chloride—were measured using standard methods and compared against World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.. The obtained results indicate that many of the estimated physico-chemical parameters of samples (1-7) are less than the permissible limits of WHO while, the values of the samples (8, 9 and 10) results exceeds the permissible limits of WHO, reflecting that the wells are contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Similar indicators are obtained by evaluation of the groundwater for irrigation uses. From bacteriolgoical study, for well numbers (8 , 9 and 10) have faecal contamination of groundwater with coliform bacteria because the number of coliforms is highly comparative with the acceptable value while none of other wells were recorded any coliform number. Keywords: Groundwater, physicochemical and biological parameters, Al Jabal Al Akhdar area, Libya.