GROUNDWATER QUALITY

Groundwater and Soil quality

Quality of GW as important as its quantity
Usability of GW depends on the quality:
chemical, physical, and bacteriological
Need studies: source and environment of
GW, pollution sources, dan other aspects
related to the quality of GW
Quality of GW is affected by the quality of
soil that holds the GW

 Effect of Soils and Plants

Minerals mobilize in the soil mantle as clay
and other soil particles weather, and planta
and animal materials decompose rains
make them leach to GW
Humid areas salt concentration 400 500
mg/l leachate from an agricultural field
Evaporation of water from surface and take
up water by roots of plants increase the
salt concentration
The dominant ions Ca, Mg, Na, HCO3,
SO4, and Cl.

 Leachate from an irigation field in an arid climate

several thousand milligrams per liter
Soil and plant effects ion exchange and other
reaction of the water and its constituents with the
soil, and uptake the nutrients by root plants.
Ion exchangecations which are adsorbed and
exchanged for other cations by the negatively
charged clay and organic matter
The sequence: Li, Na, K, NH4, Rb, Cs, H, Mg,
Ca, Sr, and Ba.
i.e.: Li is replaced by Na, Na by K, etc.
Dense clay layers (aquitards and aquicludes)
act as semi permeable membranes that hold
back certain ions while passing others

 Chemical reactionsimmobilization of
phosphate adsorbed and precipitated in most
soils other than pure sands
Heavy metals can be fixed in the soil,
particularly when the soil contains clay, has a pH
above 7 and is aerobic
Alkaline soils: calcium CaCO3, acid rain
water, however, can dissolve CaCO3 in the soil
Plan rootscan absorb nutrients like N, P, K, S,
and certain heavy metals and other trace
elementsits concentration will be reduced by
the time the rainwater has reached the GW.

 Chemical fertizersenrich the content of N, P,

an K
Canbon dioxide and organic acids produced by
plants and other living materials in the
soillower the pH of water accelerate the rate
of weathering and enhances the mobility of
metals
Aquifer effects
Water continuously moves downwardreacts with
soil and rock materials in the vadoze zone and aquifer
these reaction primarily consist of solution of solid
phase in accordance with the solution chemistry of
the particular minerals range from almost insoluble
to very soluble (evaporites) that are affected
bytemperature and pressure

 Other sources of dissolved

saltsunderground waters of marine origin
and salty connate waters intrude
freshwater aquifers.
Clay materials behave like membranes
to screen water which can produce
osmotic-pressure differences, salt seiving or
ultrafiltration, and electric-poential difference
Meteoric GW tends to be of good quality
except where it has been stagnant or
otherwise isolated from the hydrologic cycle
in mineral rich or clay rich aquifers

E.g.:igneous and crystaline rocks generally yield

excellent GW quality (salt content <100 mg/l;
seldom over 500 mg/l)

 Bacteriological quality
Bacteria and micro-organism:
- Harmless
- Diseas-causing pathogenic bacteria

Natural water, except very shallow aquifers, free from

pahogenic bacteria or viruses many consumers
treated GW
Natural water polluted by polluted water and may lack
of chlorination or other disinfection
Surface soils contain a myriad of microorganisms
decrease rapidly below the root zone
Microbiological activity can and will exist in many
subsurface regions (e.g: extend to a depth of about 2000
m, assuming a normal temparature increases about 3oC
per 100 m).

 An example: coliforms present in the

interstines of human beeing and other warmblooded animals. They are harmless
however their presence in GW indicates the
precense of pathogenoc bacteria
BOD (biological oxygen demand) an
indirect index of the presence of organic
matter and waste

Chemical quality
- Water is an excellent solvent
knowledge of the geochemistry of the dissolved
constituents
knowledge of methods of reporting of analytical
data

 Main constituents on groundwater:

TDS
Hardness
Alcalinity, Acidity, pH
Other constituents: Calcium, Magnesium,
Iron, Potassium, Strontium, Manganese,
Aluminum, Phosphorous, Nitrogen, Chloride,
etc
Minor and trace mineral: small quantity but
sometimes dangerous (toxic), e.g. Arsenic

Reporting chemical analysis

o Concentration of dissolved salt or ions in
water expressed by
(i) weight and weight-volume relative weights of
the solute and the solution in parts per million
(ppm),i.e. One part by weight of the solute in one
million part by weight of the solution miligrams in
one liter (mg/l) for low concentration of dissolved
solid; however, for high con it needs to be
corrected
(ii) chemical equivalent combination and
dissociation of cations and anions are governed by
their equivalent weights (combining weights) rather
than their gravimetric weight.

The equivalent weight of an ion equals to its

atomic or molecular weight devided by its valancy.
By deviding ionic concentration (ppm) by the
equivalen weight of that ion resulting the
concentration in equivalents per million (epm), or
more precisely in milligram equivalents per
kilogram
If the original data are reported in milligrams per
litre resulting: milligram equivalents per litre
(meq/l)
Since one equivalent weight of cation will combine
with one equivalent weight of anion the sum of
the cations should equal to the sum of anions
when they are expressed in epm. Otherwise,
errors or incompletness of chemical analysis are
indicated

Analytical results are sometimes expressed in

terms of hypothetical combinations by combining
milliequivalents of the cations with the anions in
the following sequence:
Cation
Anion
Calcium
Carbonate
Magnesium
Bicarbonate
Sodium
Sulphate
Potassium
Chloride
Nitrate

Konsentrasi dalam
satuan mg/l x faktor
konversi pada tabel
= meq/l

Sumber: Todd, 1980

DIAGRAM BATANG

DIAGRAM LINGKARAN

DIAGRAM POLA

DIAGRAM VEKTOR

DIAGRAM PIPER

 Dissolved constituents in GW
Silica from quartz (the cristalineof silica),
feldspars, mica, silicate minerals, etc a few
60 ppm
Iron from pyroxenes, amphiboles, etc in
the form of ferric hydroxide, < 0.5 ppm
Manganese from metamorphic and
sedimentary rocks conc < 0.2 ppm
Calcium
Magnesium
Etc...