EVALUATING GROUNDWATER QUALITY FOR IRRIGATION SUITABILITY IN KONYA CITY

Abstract: The estimation of groundwater quality for irrigation suitability in Konya city had been investigated based on different indices such as Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR), Soluble Sodium Percent (SSP), Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC), Magnesium Hazard (MH), Kelly’s Ratio (KR) and EC concentration. The Wilcox’s, US salinity (USSL) and Piper diagrams had been created in order to the water classification in the study area. The US salinity diagram shows that most of the samples of Konya groundwater fall in the field of C2-S1 and C3-S1 in both seasons, signifying medium and high salinity with low sodium water. Such regions necessitate special be interested to provide sufficient drainage and introduce alternative salt tolerance cropping. Moreover, in accordance with Wilcox’s Diagram, the values of the most our samples are classified as excellent to good and good to permissible classes about 94.85% in the winter and 94.35% in summer. Other best-fitted models, such as SAR, Kelly’s Index (KI), MH and RSC values indicate that groundwater is between moderate to good for irrigation purposes. The dominant groundwater classified into two water types were (Mg-Ca-HCO3) and (Ca-Mg-SO4-HCO3-Cl) types based on Piper diagram. Generally, estimation of water samples indicated that the most of the water samples are suitable for irrigation purpose, except some samples.