EFFECT OF MUNICIPAL LANDFILL SITE ON QUALITY VARIATIONS OF GROUND WATER: CASE STUDY OF BOJNOURD AQUIFER, IRAN

Ground waters are one of the important water supply resources that are constantly subjected to contamination. One of the factors contaminating ground water is leachate of municipal landfill sites. In order to investigate the effect of leachate on ground water in an area, qualitative parameters including EC, TDS, Cl- , etc. are usually used. City of Bojnourd as the capital city of North Khorasan Province produces 140 tons of solid waste every day. A major part of this solid waste is buried in Bojnourd's only landfill site located in the northeast area of the city. Ground water sampling from several wells in Bojnourd aquifer was made during 1997-2013 and then variations of the abovementioned parameters were investigated on the zoned map, especially areas influenced by the landfill site. In all of these maps, effect of landfill site on the aquifer was determined by observing a high amount of TDS, EC, and chloride around the studied area. Also, observing the variation curve and increasing trend of these three parameters in well 3 near the landfill can be other reasons which suggest the negative effect of landfill site on the ground water quality, especially in downstream regions.