Geostatistical Evaluation with Drinking Groundwater Quality Index (DGWQI) in Birjand Plain Aquifer

Groundwater is the main source of drinking water in the semi-arid regions of Iran. Therefore, monitoring the quality of this valuable resource is vital. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate and prepare a groundwater quality map of Birjand located in the semi-arid region of eastern Iran using GIS-based geostatistical analysis with Drinking Groundwater Quality Index (DGWQI). For this purpose, the collected groundwater quality data of 27 agricultural wells during the years 2014-2019 were used. The results of spatial analysis show that 63% of the aquifer area was in the appropriate quality category, 18% in the poor category, 10% in the very poor category and 9% of the aquifer area was in the non-drinking category. Sensitivity analysis indicated that Mg2+, EC, and TDS parameters with the highest mean change index of 18.98, 20.68 and 19.04 were the most sensitive parameters in calculating DGWQI, respectively. Error evaluation calculated by R2 and RMSE methods on conventional kriging and spherical variogram models showed good performance for spatial analysis of all parameters including DGWQI, Mg2+, EC, and TDS. The DGWQI map shows that the western and southwestern parts of the aquifer do not have good quality conditions for extracting drinking water.