Himalayan Geology, Vol. 45 (1), 2024, pp. 108-122, Printed in India

Assessment of groundwater quality of the area in and around Kharagpur Hills, Munger-Jamui, Bihar

BHAVUK SHARMA¹*, ATUL ADITYA PANDEY¹, SURESH KUMAR²

¹Department of Geology, Patna University, Ashok Rajpath, Patna - 800005, Bihar, India

²Central Ground Water Board, MER, Patna- 800001, Bihar, India

*Email (Corresponding author): bhavuksharma1@gmail.com, bhavuksharma@pup.ac.in

Abstract: Groundwater is an indispensable part of human life used worldwide. In this study, fifty groundwater samples have been assessed in the area around the Kharagpur Hills of Munger and Jamui Districts, Bihar, to understand the hydrogeochemical behavior and the suitability of groundwater for drinking, irrigation, and industrial purposes. Physio-Chemical Parameters have been determined to evaluate the groundwater quality which is further used to determine chloroalkaline index (CAI), Kelly's ratio (KR), magnesium hazard (MH), permeability index (PI), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), soluble sodium percentage (SSP), corrosivity ratio (CR), wilcox diagram, united states salinity laboratory diagram (USSL) and water quality index (WQI). Besides this, the trilinear Piper diagram and gibbs diagram have also been plotted to understand the geochemical character of groundwater. The analysis revealed that water is Moderately hard to very hard with low sodium hazard and medium to high conductivity and also half of the samples have a high corrosivity ratio. In chemical analysis, the order of domination of cations is found as Na⁺> Ca²⁺> Mg²⁺>K⁺, and of anions is HCO₃^- > Cl^- > SO₄^2- and hydrochemical facies comes to be Ca-Mg-HCO₃ (36% samples), Ca-Mg-Cl-SO₄ (24% Samples) and Na-K-HCO₃ (26% samples). In this study, we have also found that 16% of samples have poor quality, 36% have good quality and 48% have excellent quality of water as per WQI. Hence, this study provides and classifies groundwater quality data for better planning of groundwater resources in the area for domestic and non-domestic purposes.

Keywords: Groundwater, Hydrochemistry, GIS, Groundwater Quality, Bihar