Spring water quality and discharge assessment in the Basantar watershed of Jammu Himalaya using geographic information system (GIS) and water quality Index(WQI)

The demand for fresh spring water recently increased due to intensive domestic, industrial irrigation practices which typically caused depletion of water resources and deterioration of water quality. The spring water quality was analyzed for its major hydrochemistry and hydrochemical evolution of the spring water in the study area. A total of 60 spring water samples were collected from the three kinds of terrain (mountainous, hilly and plain) and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), bicarbonate (HCO3−), sulphate (SO42−), chloride (Cl−), nitrate (NO3−), and fluoride (F−). The water quality of drinking purposes was plotted in the Piper trilinear diagram which reveals that spring hydrochemistry is dominated by the alkaline earth and weak acids. Gibbs diagram reveals that the spring water chemistry is primarily controlled by rock-water interaction in the investigated region. The water quality index (WQI), 45% of samples fall in the excellent category, 50% of spring samples fall in good categories for drinking purposes. The pH and TDS are within the permissible limit ranges from 7 to 8.4 and 123to 793 respectively. Based on chemical analysis of the various parameters such as non-carbonate hardness, sodium percentage sodium absorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate were calculated to define the quality of spring water for irrigation purposes. The discharge of spring water was also calculated during the pre-monsoon season and found that 70% of samples have discharge more than 20 L per second (Lps).