Assessment of groundwater vulnerability to pollution in an Arid environment

This study focuses on mapping the groundwater’s vulnerability to pollution in the region of Ouargla, located in the North-East of the northern Sahara, exposed to potential risks of alteration. By applying the methods (GOD, DRASTIC, and SINTACS), coupled with a Geographic Information System (GIS), we were able to identify a medium to high vulnerability trend. In light of the results recorded, the DRASTIC and SINTACS methods prove to be more suitable for our study region. This makes it possible to highlight the recharge zones and land use as being the most vulnerable in the territory studied. The GOD method presents a strong vulnerability trend over 77.02% of the study area. Such a result is directly related to the depth of the water table. It can therefore be argued that this method is far from being representative of the reality on the ground because of these very heterogeneous characteristics.