Geospatial Approach for Mapping of Ground Water Quality of Outer Plains of Samba District, J and K, India

Ground water is ultimate, most suitable fresh water resource with nearly balanced concentration of the salts suitable for human consumption. Therefore, it is very important to monitor the quality of ground water especially if an area has all possible sources of pollution viz. Agriculture, Industry and Human population. The Outer Plains of Samba District was the area selected to assess the ground water quality. Mainly the area is agriculture based and along its perennial river Basanter an Industrial Estate is established since long time. The aim of the study is to present the distribution of various chemical constituents in the ground water of the study area in GIS environment for better understanding of the spatial distribution of each chemical parameter and mapping of the current situation of ground water quality. The most important chemical parameters of ground water like Electrical Conductivity (EC), Sulphate (SO4), Nitrate (NO3), Sodium (Na), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Chloride (Cl), Magnesium (Mg), pH, Fluoride (F), Total Hardness (TH) and Iron (Fe) were selected and compared to the guideline values presented by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The spatial distribution maps for each ground water parameter are prepared by interpolation of values by using natural neighbour method.