Comprehensive groundwater risk assessment case study: arid northern Jordan agricultural areas

In the case of Jordan, the paper demonstrates that intensive land use in arid areas imposes tremendous pressure on groundwater. The comprehensive investigations of the contamination loads, the potential protectiveness of the aquifers and the anthropogenic activities indicate that the contamination load is primarily attributable to agricultural activities and accompanied with a high susceptibility to contamination. This study shows that remote sensing and GIS techniques are powerful tools in groundwater studies, providing possibilities for the use of vast spatial data, especially in the overlaying modelling techniques. It is concluded that a significant proportion of the case study area is hazardous to contaminants, demonstrated by the vulnerability and nitrate contamination risk maps. The procedure, successfully applied in this study with a reasonably good match between the risk map and the nitrate distribution in groundwater, appears to be accurate and has with the contamination load investigations a large potential to be applied worldwide.