GIS and Geostatistical Assessment of Groundwater and Its Pollution in Kuwait

Abstract

The main objectives of this study are to identify spatial correlations between groundwater and hydro geological parameters using geostatistical and subjective probability methods, towards identifying the effect of surfacial oil pollution on groundwater. The data used included multi-element chemical data for the nine groundwater field and surface and subsurface geological data. A GIS database is constructed to map the spatial variations in the geochemical and geological parameters. Geostatistical analyses consisting of variogram and kriging analyses are conducted, and the results identified the geometries of spatial correlations between the geochemical variables in the nine groundwater fields. Weights Of Evidence (WOE) model, which is based on conditional probability analysis, is used to evaluate the spatial association between pollution related to hydrocarbon contamination and groundwater fields.