Integration of water quality indices and GIS for groundwater suitability assessment: a case study of Afigya Kwabre District, Ghana

Abstract

To evaluate groundwater suitability for drinking, domestic, and irrigation purposes in the Afigya Kwabre district, this study used the PIG, IRCA, and IWSI methods. The PIG revealed excellent (37.5%), good (10%), poor (5%), abysmal (2.5%), and unsuitable (45%) water quality types. The IRCA estimates show that 90% of the samples contain water safe for human consumption, 7.5% contain low-risk water, none contain medium-risk water, 2.5% contain high-risk water, and none contain water unfit for human consumption. Groundwater is generally suitable for drinking, but poor water quality in some communities highlights potential public health risks when groundwater is consumed without prior treatment. For irrigation use, none of the groundwater types were found to be excellent; 12.5% were good, 25% were poor, 30% were abysmal, and 32.5% were unsuitable according to the IWSI technique. This implies that groundwater is generally unsuitable for irrigation due to its relatively high Na% content.

Keywords

• Groundwter Suitability
• Water Quality Indices
• Pollution index of groundwater
• Water Quality risk index
• Irrigation Water Suitability index

Ethical Statement

Statements and Declarations Funding: The authors received no funding. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Availability of data: All data used for this study are included within the manuscript.

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