Assessment of Groundwater for Irrigation Using (IWQI) Model, Located in Al-Nimrud Region at Southeastern of Mosul City, Iraq

Abstract

The study aimed to understand the quality of groundwater in Al-Nimrud region south-eastern part of Mosul city, Iraq. Groundwater samples from 10 wells were collected during the dry season and analyzed for their physical and chemical properties using standard laboratory methods. From the analyzed data, some parameters like sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), sodium percentage (Na%), potenial salinity (PS), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), magnesium adsorption ratio (MAR), permeability index (PI) and Kellys ratio (KR) were calculated for each water sample to know the irrigational fitness and irrigation water quality index (WQI) was applied to the analytical results of the parameters to obtain a single value that was used to rank the groundwater at each well for agricultural uses. The results showed a high levels of salts for most of the water samples studied, where the average values of EC ranged between (1.64 to 5.069) dS. m -1 . Also, the estimated parameters such as Na%, SAR, PI, KR were within the appropriate levels for irrigation, while the values of MAR, PS for most of the samples were within the inappropriate limits for irrigation. Also, the results of the WQI values showed that the groundwater quality falls between the category of severe to low restrictions, therefore the use of most of the water for irrigation in the study area is likely to lead to the problem of salinity in soils with heavy texture.