Appraisal of groundwater appropriateness for consumptive and construction by applying quality, saturation, and stability indices

The current research was aim to evaluate the aptness of groundwater for both drinking and construction usages. The research was conducted in the districts of Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, and Chikkaballapur in Karnataka during the summer period 2022.The groundwater quality assessment was performed as per standard methods, prescribed by the APHA and BIS. The WQI was employed to obtain a single numerical value representing the inclusive groundwater quality-in the study area at a specific point in time. A Piper plot was constructed to visualize the chemistry of the groundwater-trials. Additionally, LSI and RSI were calculated to assess the scale and the corrosion tendency in groundwater. The lab analysis revealed that among the twelve parameters, TDS exhibited the highest spatial variation, followed by hardness, sulphates, and chlorides, while the remaining parameters fell within BIS standards. The WQI values lie between 158.3 and 311.3. Approximately 75% of the samples were categorised as having poor drinking water quality, 20% as very poor, and 5% as unsuitable for drinking and also considerably impact on agriculture and construction usage. The LSI and RSI results indicated a corrosive tendency in the construction water of the study area, with 95% of the samples showing negative Isat values and more than seven Istab values. The Piper plots demonstrated that the alkaline earths calcium and magnesium exceeded the alkalis sodium, and the strong acid sulphates exceeded the weak acid bicarbonates in most of the borewell samples.