The Effect of Land use Changes on Groundwater Quality (Case Study: Zaribar Lake Basin)

Today, land use change is one of the major problems of the world that has several implications due to population growth. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of landuse changes on groundwater quality in Zaribar lake watershed. At the first, the statistics with similar climate were selected to reduce the effects of climate on groundwater quality. Then, the map of landuse changes over 10 years (2000 to 2009) was provided using Landsat satellite images and ENVI4.5. Finally, spatial changes of ground water parameters including EC, SAR and TDH were Interpolation using ArcGIS9.3 software. The results showed that the more occurred changes are the forest to agricultural land. Because of the focus of rural residential land in north parts of the study area landuse changes are more in north part of the study area that caused reduced water quality. Also, despite the lack of change in the southern area, SAR parameter has been reduced due to the wastewater collection project.