Assessment of Groundwater Quality Index in and Around Sholinganallur Area, Tamil Nadu

Groundwater is an essential and valuable natural source of water supply all over the world. To meet out the rising demand it is crucial to identify and recognize the fresh water resources and also to find out remedial methods for improvement of water quality. The present study aims in determining the groundwater quality in and around Sholinganallur area, Kancheepuram District. Sholinganallur is a suburban town of Chennai city situated on the southern IT corridor of Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The increase in growth of Sholinganallur’s economy, population density and infrastructure developments aggravated the stress on water and land related issues. The areal extent of a study area is 46.25 km2 from Navalur to Karapakkam. The Water Quality Index explains overall quality at certain location and time, based on several physio-chemical parameters. It provides anexcellent representation of overall quality of water for various purposes in the arena of water management. Water samples were collected from ten sampling points and tested for several physiochemical parameters like pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Hardness, Alkalinity, Sulphates, Nitrates, Chloride and Fluoride. Further the study uses Arc GIS for mapping the water quality to identify the spatial variation in groundwater quality. From the study, the presence of high TDS occurs in most of the locations and the ground water quality status of the selected area is found to be critical. Further the study identified potential suggestive measures and recommendations.