ORIGINAL ARTICLE Groundwater salinization in semi-arid zones: an example from Nador plain (Tipaza, Algeria) Abdelkader Bouderbala Received: 24 May 2013 / Accepted: 11 October 2014 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract The groundwater of Nador plain has been overexploited during the last two decades. The goal was to meet the demands of intensive agricultural activities and at the same time the supply of drinking water. As a result, the dynamic balance between freshwater and seawater has been disturbed and the quality of the groundwater has deteriorated. The degradation of the groundwater quality is characterized by salinization phenomena. In this project, the analysis of the piezometric map indicates a piezometric water level of 0 m inside the plain. The chemical analysis of major ions in the groundwater was carried out on the water samples of 24 wells: it indicates an electrical con- ductivity of water exceeding 1,500 lS/cm, and chloride concentrations exceeding 500 mg/L in the downstream of the plain. Presently, the groundwater in this coastal sector is used neither for drinking water nor for irrigation. In this study, 35 vertical electrical soundings (VES) were carried out in the area, with geoelectrical sections and maps of iso- resistivity created to delineate the zones that are affected by saltwater intrusion. The findings suggest that saltwater intrusion has reached a distance of approximately 1,600 m inside the aquifer. Keywords Coastal aquifer  Hydrogeochemical characterization  Groundwater quality  Nador plain  Salinization Introduction Salinization in the coastal aquifers has become a major concern and has induced considerable economic losses, leading to impaired quality of freshwater aquifers. An excessive withdrawal of groundwater coupled with a sig- nificant decrease in recharge also contributes to this prob- lem. The magnitude of saline water intrusion is influenced by the natural geological settings, hydraulic gradient, rate of groundwater withdrawal and its recharge (Choudhury et al. 2001; Pulido-Leboeuf 2004; Batayneh 2006). The salinization of groundwater aquifers makes it unusable for drinking and irrigation (Khublaryan et al. 2008). Research dealing with marine intrusion into coastal aquifers has already been carried out in several countries around the world, with the use of different methods. Several authors are using geochemical and geophysical surveys to demar- cate the interface between freshwater and saltwater. For example, Lee and Song (2007) investigated the saltwater intrusion problem in the coastal area of South Korea, where they observed that salinization of fresh groundwater is highly associated with groundwater withdrawal. Sherif et al. (2006) used the geochemical and geophysical meth- ods to delineate the saltwater intrusion into the Wadi Ham in the UAE. Some authors used radioactive isotopes in order to explain the increase of salinity in the coastal aquifers, while other authors employed only geochemical methods based on variations of salinity cation and anion concentrations. Some specific ions such as Cl - , Na 2? , Mg 2? , SO 4 2- , and Br - are enriched by seawater intrusion and can be used as markers of its influence (Milnes and Renard 2004; Capaccioni et al. 2005; Zouhri et al. 2008; Mondal et al. 2010). In particular, Cl - and Br - have been used as represen- tative proxies to estimate the influence of seawater on A. Bouderbala (&) Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Khemis Miliana, Route Soufay, Thneit Had, 44000 Khemis Miliana, Algeria e-mail: bouderbala.aek@gmail.com 123 Environ Earth Sci DOI 10.1007/s12665-014-3801-9