Assessment of groundwater quality of major industrial city of Central Ganga plain, Western Uttar Pradesh, India through mass transport modeling using chloride as contaminant

Present work deals with the simulation of a three-dimensional groundwater flow and solute transport model of Moradabad city lying between rivers Ramganga and Gagan. Present study is used to predict the response of aquifer and the migration of contaminant (chloride in this case) over a period of time using MODFLOW and MT3D software. A grid system of 500 m×500 m was designed and the various input parameters such as hydraulic head, layer thickness, recharge, pumping etc. were applied under various packages available in the software. Pumping rates of 500 m3/day, 1000 m3/day and 1500 m3/day were used for the simulation of abstraction. Hydraulic conductivity ranging from 13 to 18 m/day was assigned block wise. The model was run for steady state condition until a match between observed and computed heads was obtained. Sensitivity analysis was done by varying hydraulic conductivity and recharge parameters in the model. Solute transport modeling is carried out considering Cl as contaminant. Concentration of chloride is higher in northern, central and southern part of the study area. The data obtained from the water quality analysis of June 2012 was used initially in the steady state simulation. The predictions made from transport model indicate that the concentration of chloride would continue to increase if the current situation is not controlled and this will lead to further deterioration of groundwater quality.

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