Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Environmental Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1007/s42398-020-00148-4 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Spatial assessment of major ion geochemistry in the groundwater around Suryapet Region, Southern Telangana, India Shankaraiah Katla 1  · Sakram Gugulothu 2  · Ratnakar Dhakate 2 Received: 24 July 2019 / Revised: 3 November 2020 / Accepted: 4 November 2020 © Society for Environmental Sustainability 2020 Abstract Twenty-two groundwater samples were picked up from the bore wells during the pre and post-monsoon seasons in and around the Suryapet region of the southern Telangana State, India. The samples were analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), nitrates (NO 3 − ), sulfates (SO 4 2− ), carbonates (CO 3 − ), bicarbonates (HCO 3 − ), total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca 2+ ), magnesium (Mg 2+ ), chloride (Cl − ), sodium (Na + ), potassium (K + ) and fuoride (F − ) to study the geochemistry of groundwater available in that region. EC concentration ranges from 570–5200 µS/cm and 640–4800 µS/cm with an average value of 2238.64 µS/cm and 1981.8 µS/cm for pre and post-monsoon seasons respectively. Wilcox classifca- tion indicates that the groundwater samples of pre and post-monsoon times showed low sodium hazard (S1–C1) as of 86% and 91% respectively, and moderate to high in salinity risk (C2–C3) for maximum samples. Piper trilinear plot was made to detect hydro-chemical facies by utilizing major anions and cations concentrations. Maximum of the samples belong to Ca 2+ –Mg 2+ –Cl − –SO 4 2− and Na + –Cl − –SO 4 2− hydro-chemical facies. Besides this, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried out to understand the geochemistry of groundwater. The quality of the groundwater system is of high apprehen- sion as potable water desires to have sustainable mineral content. Keywords Major ions · Hydrochemical facies · Groundwater · Piper plot · Wilcox diagram Introduction Global water resources are infuenced by various factors such as natural cycles, anthropogenic activities in urban as well as rural areas, and technological advances in the water utiliza- tion processes (Bhatnagar et al. 2016; Pant et al. 2018; Qu et al. 2020). Human population explosion and rapid climate changes in recent years have further put a strain on the avail- ability of water across the globe (Wolf et al. 2006; Reddy et al. 2014). Such a situation has increased the demand for water supply which cannot be fulflled with the groundwater resources alone (Shankariah et al. 2017; Rehman et al. 2018; Tripathee et al. 2020a). The aquifers from urban regions are always under stress given the threefold demand of domestic, irrigation, and industrial requirements. Such a situation demands high rates of groundwater utilization and hence compromises the qual- ity of water (Dixit et al. 2005; Sreedhar et al. 2018). The overuse of aquifers, for agriculture and industrial purposes in rural areas, without proper recharge practices over the years tends to deplete the quantity as well as the quality of the extracted resources (Jerry et al. 1986; Aksoy and Scheytt 2007). Furthermore, due to inadequate distribution of sur- face water, the greater part of the general population in bone- dry, particularly the semiarid localities in India are heavily dependent on groundwater for their daily needs (Sakram et al. 2013; Sakram and Narsimha 2018; Machender et al. 2014). The physico-chemical characterization of groundwa- ter is considered as the measure of its suitability for con- sumption in domestic, irrigation, and industrial applications (Babiker et al. 2007; Pandian and Sankar 2007; Sakram et al. 2015, 2020; Satyanarayana et al. 2017). Hence the utilization of natural water resources should be planned in a manner to ensure the sustainable supply, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The catchment uniqueness of aquifer depends on climatic conditions, geology, and land use pattern of the area. The * Shankaraiah Katla shankark.geo@gmail.com 1 Department of Applied Geochemistry, Osmania University, Hyderabad, Telangana 500007, India 2 CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, India