Hydrogeochemical Mechanism Associated with Land Use Land Cover Indices Using Geospatial, Remote Sensing Techniques, and Health Risks Model

Land is a vital component of nature around the world and is essential for humans, terrestrial plants, and animals. However, urbanization is growing worldwide and the groundwater quality in urban areas is declining due to rapid development, industrialization, and pollution. Hence, it is important to determine the hydrogeochemistry and changes concerning land use and land cover (LULC). This study was conducted to investigate the hydrogeochemical mechanism of Sargodha, one of Pakistan’s fastest-growing cities, during 2015 and 2021 under two different LULC indices named normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference built-up index (NDBI). Forty-eight groundwater samples were collected in 2015 and 2021 to assess groundwater quality for domestic use and irrigation. The Piper diagram revealed that (Ca2++Mg2+–HCO3−+CO32−) and (Na++K+–SO42−+Cl−) were the main components of hydrogeochemistry in both years. The Gibbs plot and silicate weathering of groundwater samples indicated that rock dominance and silicate weathering played a major role in aquifers. Additionally, the results showed that 4% of the groundwater in 2015 and 21% of the groundwater samples in 2021 were unfit for human consumption. However, 37% and 40% of samples were considered not fit for irrigation in 2015 and 2021, respectively. The LULC, NDVI, and NDBI clearly revealed higher urban areas in 2021 compared to 2015. The relationship between groundwater parameters and land use land cover indices (NDVI and NDBI) explained that none had a major relationship. The non-carcinogenic risk showed health quotient HQ < 1, indicating no severe health risk due to nitrate (NO3−) exposure in the city. The current study suggests conducting future investigations considering a larger scale to recommend efficient management strategies, urbanization planning, and ensuring safe irrigation and drinking water to prevent groundwater pollution.

[1]  A. Parkash,et al.  Evolution Mechanism of Arsenic Enrichment in Groundwater and Associated Health Risks in Southern Punjab, Pakistan , 2022, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[2]  Wenjing Zhang,et al.  Health Risk Assessment during In Situ Remediation of Cr(VI)-Contaminated Groundwater by Permeable Reactive Barriers: A Field-Scale Study , 2022, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[3]  S. Ghoneim,et al.  Designing Efficient and Sustainable Predictions of Water Quality Indexes at the Regional Scale Using Machine Learning Algorithms , 2022, Water.

[4]  A. Tariq,et al.  Spatio-temporal variation of seasonal heat islands mapping of Pakistan during 2000–2019, using day-time and night-time land surface temperatures MODIS and meteorological stations data , 2022, Remote Sensing Applications Society and Environment.

[5]  M. Mobeen,et al.  Assessment of Urban Sprawl in Sargodha City using Remotely Sense Data , 2022, Ecological Questions.

[6]  P. Ávila-Pérez,et al.  Climatic and hydrological variations caused by Land Use/Land Cover changes in the Valley of Toluca, Mexico: A rapid assessment , 2022, Sustainable Cities and Society.

[7]  S. Ravan,et al.  Anthropogenic Land Use and Land Cover Changes—A Review on Its Environmental Consequences and Climate Change , 2022, Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing.

[8]  S. M. Bateni,et al.  A non-threshold model to estimate carcinogenic risk of nitrate-nitrite in drinking water , 2022, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[9]  M. K. Sarkar,et al.  The impact of coastal development on land surface temperature in the mangrove ecosystem of the Chattogram coast in Bangladesh , 2022, Journal of Coastal Conservation.

[10]  K. Kibria,et al.  SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION AND THE ASSESSMENT OF POND WATER SUITABILITY FOR AQUACULTURE IN THE SONADANGA AND KOTWALI THANAS OF KHULNA CITY CORPORATION , 2022, Khulna University Studies.

[11]  Jiansheng Chen,et al.  Impact of land use and cover on shallow groundwater quality in Songyuan city, China: A multivariate statistical analysis. , 2022, Environmental pollution.

[12]  Md. Nazrul Islam,et al.  The impact of land use and land cover change on groundwater recharge in northwestern Bangladesh. , 2022, Journal of environmental management.

[13]  K. Adegoke,et al.  Environmental health impacts and controlling measures of anthropogenic activities on groundwater quality in Southwestern Nigeria , 2022, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

[14]  S. Karuppannan,et al.  An integrated approach to explore the suitability of nitrate-contaminated groundwater for drinking purposes in a semiarid region of India , 2022, Environmental Geochemistry and Health.

[15]  Irshad Hussain,et al.  Exploiting IoT and Its Enabled Technologies for Irrigation Needs in Agriculture , 2022, Water.

[16]  A. Khan,et al.  Water Governance and Management in the 21st Century: A Case Study of Pakistan , 2022, Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.

[17]  S. Karuppannan,et al.  Land use and land cover (LULC) change analysis using TM, ETM+ and OLI Landsat images in district of Okara, Punjab, Pakistan , 2022, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C.

[18]  Dayi Zhang,et al.  Physiological characteristics, geochemical properties and hydrological variables influencing pathogen migration in subsurface system: What we know or not? , 2022, Geoscience Frontiers.

[19]  A. Essam,et al.  Heavy Metal Removal from the Water of the River Nile Using Riverbank Filtration , 2021, Water.

[20]  J. Iqbal,et al.  Hydrogeochemical Assessment of Groundwater and Suitability Analysis for Domestic and Agricultural Utility in Southern Punjab, Pakistan , 2021, Water.

[21]  J. Iqbal,et al.  Shallow Groundwater Quality Assessment and Its Suitability Analysis for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes , 2021, Water.

[22]  M. Awais,et al.  A GIS-Based Groundwater Contamination Assessment Using Modified DRASTIC Geospatial Technique , 2021, Water.

[23]  Dongmei Han,et al.  Review of drivers and threats to coastal groundwater quality in China. , 2021, The Science of the total environment.

[24]  R. Noori,et al.  Iran's Groundwater Hydrochemistry , 2021, Earth and Space Science.

[25]  Lei Wang,et al.  Deterioration of groundwater quality along an increasing intensive land use pattern in a small catchment , 2021, Agricultural Water Management.

[26]  R. Noori,et al.  Anthropogenic depletion of Iran’s aquifers , 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[27]  Natasha,et al.  Hydrogeochemical and health risk investigation of potentially toxic elements in groundwater along River Sutlej floodplain in Punjab, Pakistan , 2021, Environmental Geochemistry and Health.

[28]  S. Xie,et al.  Land-use change caused by anthropogenic activities increase fluoride and arsenic pollution in groundwater and human health risk. , 2020, Journal of hazardous materials.

[29]  Yaning Chen,et al.  Evolution characteristics of groundwater and its response to climate and land-cover changes in the oasis of dried-up river in Tarim Basin , 2020 .

[30]  S. Karuppannan,et al.  Evaluation of drinking and irrigation suitability of groundwater with special emphasizing the health risk posed by nitrate contamination using nitrate pollution index (NPI) and human health risk assessment (HHRA) , 2020 .

[31]  H. Qian,et al.  Groundwater chemistry, distribution and potential health risk appraisal of nitrate enriched groundwater: A case study from the semi-urban region of South India. , 2020, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety.

[32]  Tarig A. Ali,et al.  Land Use/Land Cover Changes Impact on Groundwater Level and Quality in the Northern Part of the United Arab Emirates , 2020, Remote. Sens..

[33]  Aziz Ahmed,et al.  Hydrogeochemical signatures and suitability assessment of groundwater with elevated fluoride in unconfined aquifers Badin district, Sindh, Pakistan , 2020, SN Applied Sciences.

[34]  Jianhua Wu,et al.  Groundwater chemistry and groundwater quality index incorporating health risk weighting in Dingbian County, Ordos basin of northwest China , 2020 .

[35]  J. Iqbal,et al.  Effects of Arsenic Toxicity on the Environment and Its Remediation Techniques: A Review , 2020, Journal of Water and Environment Technology.

[36]  Peiyue Li,et al.  Statistical and multivariate statistical techniques to trace the sources and affecting factors of groundwater pollution in a rapidly growing city on the Chinese Loess Plateau , 2020, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal.

[37]  Shahzad Afzal,et al.  Groundwater quality assessment and human health risks in Gujranwala District, Pakistan , 2019, Environmental Earth Sciences.

[38]  Najeebullah Khan,et al.  The changing characteristics of groundwater sustainability in Pakistan from 2002 to 2016 , 2019, Hydrogeology Journal.

[39]  Muhammad Afnan Talib,et al.  Hydrogeochemical Characterization and Suitability Assessment of Groundwater: A Case Study in Central Sindh, Pakistan , 2019, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[40]  Khanoranga,et al.  An assessment of groundwater quality for irrigation and drinking purposes around brick kilns in three districts of Balochistan province, Pakistan, through water quality index and multivariate statistical approaches , 2019, Journal of Geochemical Exploration.

[41]  Moharram Fouad,et al.  Prediction of the pollutants movements from the polluted industrial zone in 10th of Ramadan city to the Quaternary aquifer , 2019, Applied Water Science.

[42]  Rakhshanda Sadaf,et al.  Impact of Urbanization Growth on Land Surface Temperature using remote sensing and GIS: A Case Study of Gujranwala City, Punjab, Pakistan , 2019 .

[43]  J. Adamowski,et al.  A critical review on the application of the National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index. , 2019, Environmental pollution.

[44]  Terefe Tolessa,et al.  Evaluating the impacts of climate and land use/land cover (LU/LC) dynamics on the Hydrological Responses of the Upper Blue Nile in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia , 2018, Spatial Information Research.

[45]  I. Xagoraraki,et al.  Influence of rainy season and land use on drinking water quality in a karst landscape, State of Yucatán, Mexico , 2018, Applied Geochemistry.

[46]  Pulak Mishra,et al.  Impacts of urbanization on land use /cover changes and its probable implications on local climate and groundwater level , 2018, Journal of Urban Management.

[47]  J. Bian,et al.  Impacts of urban land use on the spatial distribution of groundwater pollution, Harbin City, Northeast China. , 2018, Journal of contaminant hydrology.

[48]  A. Tavili,et al.  Monitoring and assessment of seasonal land cover changes using remote sensing: a 30-year (1987–2016) case study of Hamoun Wetland, Iran , 2018, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

[49]  Zhifeng Jin,et al.  The role of human activity in decreasing ecologically sound land use in China , 2018 .

[50]  A. Narsimha,et al.  Spatial distribution and seasonal variation in fluoride enrichment in groundwater and its associated human health risk assessment in Telangana State, South India , 2018 .

[51]  W. Jiao,et al.  Hydrological and pollution processes in mining area of Fenhe River Basin in China. , 2018, Environmental pollution.

[52]  A. Bano,et al.  Effects of exogenously applied plant growth regulators in combination with PGPR on the physiology and root growth of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and their role in drought tolerance , 2018 .

[53]  S. Suthar,et al.  Assessment of Human Health Risk Associated with High Groundwater Fluoride Intake in Southern Districts of Punjab, India , 2017, Exposure and Health.

[54]  J. Gurdak,et al.  Land-use change and managed aquifer recharge effects on the hydrogeochemistry of two contrasting atoll island aquifers, Roi-Namur Island, Republic of the Marshall Islands , 2017 .

[55]  M. Khan,et al.  Impact of climate change on the precipitation pattern of district Sargodha, Pakistan , 2017 .

[56]  Md. Ibrahim Khalil,et al.  Hydrochemical Characteristics and Quality Assessment of Groundwater in Patuakhali District, Southern Coastal Region of Bangladesh , 2017, Exposure and Health.

[57]  Bai-zhong Yan,et al.  Impacts of urban land use on nitrate contamination in groundwater, Jilin City, Northeast China , 2016, Arabian Journal of Geosciences.

[58]  Rudolf Liedl,et al.  Land use/land cover classification and its change detection using multi-temporal MODIS NDVI data , 2015, Journal of Geographical Sciences.

[59]  R. Naidu,et al.  Unraveling Health Risk and Speciation of Arsenic from Groundwater in Rural Areas of Punjab, Pakistan , 2015, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[60]  Bruno M. Meneses,et al.  Land use and land cover changes in Zêzere watershed (Portugal)--Water quality implications. , 2015, The Science of the total environment.

[61]  F. Ahmad.  Detection of Change in Vegetation Cover Using Multi-Spectral and Multi-Temporal Information for District Sargodha , 2012 .

[62]  M. A. Ahsan,et al.  Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination of Agricultural Soil around Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ), Bangladesh: Implication of Seasonal Variation and Indices , 2012 .

[63]  U. Shukla,et al.  Hydrogeochemistry for the assessment of groundwater quality in Varanasi: a fast-urbanizing center in Uttar Pradesh, India , 2011, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[64]  David N. Lerner,et al.  The relationship between land use and groundwater resources and quality , 2009 .

[65]  A. Latocha.  Land-use changes and longer-term human-environment interactions in a mountain region (Sudetes Mountains, Poland). , 2009 .

[66]  Tyler D. Johnson,et al.  Assigning land use to supply wells for the statistical characterization of regional groundwater quality: Correlating urban land use and VOC occurrence , 2009 .

[67]  Antonio Leone,et al.  Land cover and land use change in the Italian central Apennines: A comparison of assessment methods , 2009 .

[68]  K. Srinivasamoorthy,et al.  Identification of major sources controlling groundwater chemistry from a hard rock terrain — A case study from Mettur taluk, Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India , 2008 .

[69]  C. Zhang,et al.  Impact of land use change on groundwater quality in a typical karst watershed of southwest China: a case study of the Xiaojiang watershed, Yunnan Province , 2008 .

[70]  Hanqiu Xu.  Extraction of Urban Built-up Land Features from Landsat Imagery Using a Thematicoriented Index Combination Technique , 2007 .

[71]  F. Worrall,et al.  Aquifer vulnerability to pesticide pollution - Combining soil, land-use and aquifer properties with molecular descriptors , 2004 .

[72]  C. Tucker,et al.  Satellite remote sensing of primary production , 1986 .

[73]  R. Gibbs.  Mechanisms Controlling World Water Chemistry , 1970, Science.

[74]  D. Thorne.  Diagnosis and Improvement of Saline and Alkali Soils , 1954 .

[75]  Arthur M. Piper,et al.  A graphic procedure in the geochemical interpretation of water-analyses , 1944 .