Qualitative Vulnerability Assessment of Birjand Plain Aquifer Using SINTACS Method

Given the importance of groundwater resources and the water shortage crisis in Iran, a significant attention should be paid to these resources. One of regarding challenges is the resource pollution; therefore the vulnerable resources should be revealed based on suitable assessments to eliminate pollutions by the necessary actions. In the most cases, the groundwater pollution can be detected after the drinking water wells were polluted. Detection of vulnerable zones of an aquifer can be used for the groundwater pollution preventive actions. Different vulnerability assessment methods have been presented which one of the proper and well-known methods of overlaying indicator named SINTACS has been used in this research. The study aims assessing the qualitative vulnerability of Birjand plain aquifer, using SINTACS model for a statistical period of 2016-2017. Based on the results of this assessment, the SINTACS vulnerability zoning map indicates that 12.81 percent of the zone space has a vulnerability of medium to high level, 80.47 percent of the space has a high vulnerability level and 6.71 percent of the space has a very high vulnerability level. For the SINTACS model verification, the relation between vulnerability and Nitrate density values of 21 groundwater samples have been examined. The gained correlation coefficient between vulnerability index of SINTACS and Nitrate density was 71 which shows suitable correlation of this model with Nitrate density as groundwater pollution index.