Assessing and quality zoning of groundwater resources of Marand plain for drinking, agriculture, and industrial purposes

Marand plain is one of the fertile plains in the province of East Azarbaijan which its aquifer provides drinking, agricultural, industrial water demands of the area. Therefore, the evaluation and protection of the quantity and quality of these water resources is extremely The purpose of this research is the qualitative zoning of Marand plain groundwater in terms of drinking، agriculture and industry. For this purpose, 91 samples were taken from operational wells in June 2019. Hydrogeochemical characteristics and concentration of major and minor ions and some heavy metals were measured by means of standard methods. The usefulness of the Plain groundwater for various consumptions was investigated using graphical methods and quality criteria of Schuler, Wilcox, and Langelier classification. In this regard, the final maps of quality zoning were prepared after creating the raster layers of the effective parameters, classification, and integration using GIS and the geostatistical interpolation method. The industrial, agricultural and drinking water quality were evaluated by using langelier scaling, Wilcox and Schuler methosd, respectively. Analyzing and Interpreting of zoning maps with geological information, land use, distribution of industrial units was carried out in the plain and the results show that the quality of groundwater is inappropriate mainly in the northern, central, western parts of the plain due to the precens of salty and gypsum formations in northen and western part of the plain.