• Assessing variability of water quality in a groundwater-fed perennial lake of Kashmir Himalayas using linear geostatics

• Fulltext

https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jess/120/03/0399-0411

• Keywords

Manasbal lake; Kashmir Himalayas; chemical quality; geostatistics; major ions; trace elements.

• Abstract

This paper presents a study on Manasbal lake, which is one of the high altitude lakes in the KashmirValley, India. Eighteen water samples were analysed for major ions and trace elements to assess the variability of water quality of the lake for various purposes. Geostatistics, the theory of regionalized variables, was then used to enhance the dataset and estimate some missing spatial values. Resultsindicated that the concentration of major ions in the water samples in winter was higher than in summer. The scatter diagrams suggested the dominance of alkaline earths over the alkali elements. Three types of water were identified in the lake that are referred to as Ca–HCO3, Mg–HCO3 and hybrid types. The lake water was found to be controlled by rock–water interaction with carbonate lithology as a dominant source of the solutes. The major (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, NO3 and HCO$^{−}_{3}$, CO3 and Cl) and trace elements of the lake water were within the World Health Organization standards, therefore the lake water was considered chemically safe for drinking purposes. Although NO3 concentration (ranging from 1.72 to 2 mg/L), is within the permissible limit and not very alarming, the gradually increasing trend is not acceptable. It is however, important to guard its spatio-temporal variability as the water is used for domestic as well as agricultural purposes. This study is significant as hydrogeological information on such high altitude lakes in India is scanty.

• Author Affiliations

1. IFCGR, National Geophysical Research Institute, CSIR, Hyderabad 500 606, India.
2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar 190 006, India.

• Journal of Earth System Science

Volume 129, 2020
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• Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019