Physical And Chemical Characteristics Interpretation For Groundwater Quality Assessment In The Coastal Area, North Kelantan, Malaysia (Interpretasi Karakterisasi Fisika dan Kimia untuk Penilaian Kualitas Airtanah di Area Pesisir, Kelantan Utara, Malaysia)

Physical and chemical groundwater interpretation has been done in order to characterize and assess its associated problem in the coastal area, North Kelantan, Malaysia. A total of thirty three groundwater samples that consisted of sixteen groundwater samples were collected directly from existing well and together with seventeen groundwater data obtained from government agency, were used in this study. The depth of groundwater sample was varied from the shallow (3.5 m) to the deeper (130 m) aquifer. The physical groundwater characteristics were measured directly at the site just after the groundwater collected. The chemical content of the groundwater sample were analysed using Ion Chromatography (IC) and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP). Finally the data was presented and interpreted using the bivariate and piper diagram to improve interpretation and analysis of the whole data. Analysis result of the groundwater sample indicates that the shallow aquifer can be categorized as fresh water. In the zone with marine soil deposit, chloride and sulphate concentration tend to be higher in the water sample. However, the concentration of water sample is still within the accepted limit for human consumption. In places with relatively higher USAge of chemical fertilizer, the groundwater sample exhibits higher nitrate concentration more than limit of safe for human consumption (>45 mg/L). K, Ca, Mg and Na content have a positive correlation with chloride concentration in deeper aquifer, indicating that the ions are derived from the same source of saline waters. The relationship between Cl/HCO3 ratios and chloride also shows that the fresh groundwater and seawater mixing in aquifer, and the samples with lower ratios can be categorized as fresh waters. In the shallow aquifer most ions exhibit a poor correlation to chloride indicating that such ions are derived from a different source