Application of Wilcox and united state salinity laboratory diagrams to assess groundwater quality for irrigation purposes around Saqlawiyah area, al-Anbar, Iraq

Abstract EN

Wilcox and United State Salinity Laboratory (USSL) diagrams have been applied in the current study to evaluate the available water wells in the area surrounded Saqlawiyah town and to determine its suitability for agricultural purposes.

To achieve this goal the Electrical Conductivity (EC) has been measured and Sodium Percent (Na%) and Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR) have been calculated based on the chemical analysis of Ca2 2+, Mg2+, Na+ , K+ .

EC values show that 8.33% of the available water well falls in the tolerable class, 33.33% under intolerant class and 58% in health hazard class.

The USSL diagrams show that (50%) of the available well water in the study area is not suitable for irrigation as it belongs to the very high salinity hazard category (C4).

The remaining water well samples are belonging to high salinity hazard category (C3).

According to the classification scheme of Wilcox irrigation water, the majority of the well water samples (about 50% of water samples) fall under unsuitable category and 41.66% under a doubtful to unsuitable category.

Other percentage of the water samples, which represents that of well No.

12 fall within good to permissible category.

Therefore only this water can be used for irrigation purposes in the study area.

This is because the well lies near the river, where it may get a direct additional recharge.