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Assessment on contamination vulnerability of Akaki well fields using GIS and DRASTICA methods

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Abstract

Groundwater vulnerability to contamination is becoming a major issue in urban settlement territories due to multiple anthropogenic activities. Akaki well fields supply 30% of the domestic water for Addis Ababa city, However, these well fields are highly vulnerable to contamination as these well fields are located downstream of the city, and assessment of groundwater vulnerability to contamination is essential. The present study investigates the vulnerability of Akaki well fields to contamination using the GIS DRASTICA method. DRASTICA stands for depth to water level (D), recharge (R), aquifer (A), soil (S), topography (T), impact of vadose zone (I), hydraulic conductivity (C), and anthropogenic activities (A). To generate the groundwater vulnerability to contamination, the method considered these eight parameters. Groundwater samples were collected from twenty boreholes for laboratory analysis to determine the water quality index. This water quality index was used to validate the DRASTICA method besides nitrate concentration. The DRASTICA method identified five vulnerability zones such as very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. According to the result of the DRASTICA method, 7.68% of the study area has a very low class of groundwater vulnerability zone, 24.54% is low class, 28.91% is moderate class, 29.85% is high class, and 9.02% of the study area has a very high class of vulnerability zone. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the impact of a vadose zone is the most influential parameter of the vulnerability index. The correlation between the DRASTICA index and nitrate was R2 = 0.95 which indicated that the DRASTICA method has the best relation with actual pollution substances found in the groundwater. Those well fields that have high water quality index were found in the very high vulnerability zone of the DRASTICA index. Thus, both water quality index and nitrate concentration were found to be correlated with the method.

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Funding

Ethiopian Ministry of Education is the funding Agency for this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Kotebe Metropolitan University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Lemi Dugassa

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Brook Abate

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  1. Lemi Dugassa
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  2. Brook Abate
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Correspondence to Brook Abate.

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Dugassa, L., Abate, B. Assessment on contamination vulnerability of Akaki well fields using GIS and DRASTICA methods. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 8, 94 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00687-0

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