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Article
Geospatial Assessment of Groundwater Quality with the Distinctive Portrayal of Heavy Metals in the United Arab Emirates
Water (Switzerland)
  • Imen Ben Salem, Zayed University
  • Yousef Nazzal, Zayed University
  • Fares M. Howari, Zayed University
  • Manish Sharma, Zayed University
  • Jagadish Kumar Mogaraju, Agro-Ecosystems Specialist Group
  • Cijo M. Xavier, Zayed University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2022
Abstract

Groundwater is a valuable resource, and its quality is critical to human survival. Optimal farming and urbanization degraded groundwater reserves. This research investigates and reports the spatial variability of selected heavy metals developed in the Liwa area of the United Arab Emirates. Forty water samples were collected from existing wells and analyzed for different elements. Principal components analysis was applied to a subgroup of the data set in terms of their usefulness for determining the variability of groundwater quality variables. Geographic information systems were used to produce contour maps to analyze the distribution of heavy metals. Ordinary kriging was used with Circular, Spherical, Tetraspherical, Pentaspherical-Bessel, K-Bessel, Hole effect, and Stable models for better representation. The water quality index was constructed using heavy metal concentrations and other variables. This yielded a value of 900 beyond the limit stated by WHO and US EPA. Nugget analysis showed that Cd (0), K (7.38%), and SO4 (1.81%) variables exhibited strong spatial dependence. Al (27%), Ba (40.87%), Cr (63%), Cu (34%), EC (27%), HCO3 (56%), NO3 (36%), Pb (64%), and TDS (53%) represented moderate spatial dependence. As (76%), Mn (79%), Ni (100%), pH (100%), Temp (93%), and Zn (100%) exhibited weak spatial dependence.

Publisher
MDPI AG
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Geostatistics,
  • GIS,
  • Groundwater,
  • Heavy metal pollution,
  • UAE
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
Yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series
Citation Information
Imen Ben Salem, Yousef Nazzal, Fares M. Howari, Manish Sharma, et al.. "Geospatial Assessment of Groundwater Quality with the Distinctive Portrayal of Heavy Metals in the United Arab Emirates" Water (Switzerland) Vol. 14 Iss. 6 (2022) ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/2073-4441" target="_blank">
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/yousef-nazzal/43/