Survey and zoning of nitrate-contaminated groundwater in Iran

Groundwater quality management is important in arid and semi-arid regions,as in iran. nitrate (no3 - ) is a common anion that contaminates groundwater. the present study determined the nitrate concentrations of aquifers in iran. data derived from studies in which the nitrate concentration had minimal spatial error at different periods were used for analysis. this included a total number of 2353 nitrate samples taken from wells located in all area of iran. these were extracted from 82 articles and covered all of provinces. furthermore,in every region,the average and maximum nitrate concentration were identified and kriging interpolation technique was used to obtain the spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters by arc view gis 10.2 software. the results showed that the nitrate levels in samples from some regions were above the maximum standard level. nitrate contamination in some regions had increased over the last 10 years. genetic algorithms were applied to determine the relationship between average nitrate concentration and population density,consumption of drinking water and agricultural water use. the results show that water use in agricultural areas and the subsequent consumption of fertilizer are the main source of groundwater contamination with nitrate in iran. © 2017,university of mohammed premier oujda morocco