Monitoring of Groundwater Quality With Cokriging of Geochemical and Geoelectrical Measurements

Abstract

Abstract The study presents the possibility of using geostatistical methods for monitoring groundwater quality. Poland is one of the largest copper producers in the world. However, the extraction and production of copper requires constant care for the natural environment. Reservoir Żelazny Most which is situated in South – Western Poland was designed to store flotation tailings out of nearby copper mines. It is one of the biggest industrial dumps in the world. The reservoir stores huge amounts of tailings and industrial water. Water migrating from dump to groundwater could be a potential source of contamination with chlorides, sulphates, heavy metals, and other hazardous substances used in ore separation process in the copper mining industry, like detergent and phenols. Monitoring system around Żelazny Most dump, which was designed to track harmful substances concentrations in groundwater, contains measuring wells and piezometers. They are used to collect groundwater samples for chemical analyses. The idea of the study was to integrate information provided by chemical analyses and geoelectrical measurements by cokriging method, utilizing correlation between electrical resistance of the soil solution and total dissolved solids concentration in groundwater. This enabled to obtain spatial distribution of total dissolved solids concentrations in groundwater at the part of eastern foreground of Żelazny Most dump.