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Groundwater vulnerability to pollution assessment: an application of geospatial techniques and integrated IRN-DEMATEL-ANP decision model

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posted on 2023-04-17, 14:16 authored by Emmanuel Chibundo Chukwuma, Chris Chukwuma Okonkwo, Oluwasola AfolabiOluwasola Afolabi, Quoc Bao Pham, Daniel Chinazom Anizoba, Chikwunonso Divine Okpala

This study evaluated the susceptibility to groundwater pollution using a modified DRASTIC model. A novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model integrating Interval Rough Numbers (IRN), Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), and Analytical Network Process (ANP) was used to investigate the interrelationships between critical hydrogeologic factors (and determine their relative weights) via a novel vulnerability index based on the DRASTIC model. The flexibility of GIS in handling spatial data was employed to delineate thematic map layers of the hydrogeologic factors and to improve the DRASTIC model. The hybrid MCDM model results show that Net Recharge (a key hydrogeologic factor) had the highest priority with a weight of 0.1986. In contrast, the Topography factor had the least priority, with a weight of 0.0497. A case study validated the hybrid model using Anambra State, Nigeria. The resultant vulnerability map shows that 12.98 % of the study area falls into a very high vulnerability class, 31.90 % falls into a high vulnerability, 23.52 % falls into the average vulnerability, 21.75 % falls into a low vulnerability, and 9.85 % falls into very low vulnerability classes, respectively. In addition, nitrate concentration was used to evaluate the degree of groundwater pollution. Based on observed nitrate concentration, the modified DRASTIC model was validated and compared to the traditional DRASTIC model; interestingly, the spatial model of the modified DRASTIC model performed better. This study is thus critical for environmental monitoring and implementing appropriate management interventions to protect groundwater resources against indiscriminate sources of pollution.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Volume

30

Issue

17

Pages

49856 - 49874

Publisher

Springer

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Author(s)

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access article published by Springer Nature and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Acceptance date

2023-01-17

Publication date

2023-02-14

Copyright date

2023

ISSN

0944-1344

eISSN

1614-7499

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Sola Afolabi. Deposit date: 27 January 2023

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