Groundwater Characterization and Quality Assessment by using GIS and Geo Statistics from Pandalgudi Region, Virudhunagar District, Tamilnadu, India

Twenty four representative groundwater samples collected during pre-monsoon and post monsoon seasons in 2014 from Pandalgudi region, Viruthunagar district, Tamilnadu, were analyzed for various physicochemical parameters such as pH, TDS, EC, Cations Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ , Na + , K + and Anions HCO 3 -, SO 4 -, Cl -, F -and NO 3 -. The GIS based, thematic iso-quality geospatial contour maps for the integrated parameters of cations Ca 2+ -Mg 2+ , Na + -K + and anions HCO 3 --SO 4 --Cl -, were generated by the software Arc GIS 10.1. The geo statistical evaluation such as Multiple Correlations, Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis of groundwater quality parameters was carried out by the geo-statistics software 'PAST'. Further, the water quality parameters were illustrated with Gibbs and Piper method. Finally, water qualities of the study area are compared with BIS and WHO standards of drinking water and other standards such as livestock and irrigation purposes.