Groundwater quality assessment for drinking, irrigation purposes and fuzzy logic-based water quality index for industrial suitability in Walajapet taluk, Ranipet district, Tamil Nadu, India

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Abstract
Ranipet district in Tamil Nadu is one of the major industrial zones in India. Groundwater has been extensively used in this region for drinking, agricultural, and industrial purposes. For finding the groundwater quality, representative samples have been collected in the premonsoon (PRM) and postmonsoon (POM) seasons of 2023 and analysed for major physicochemical parameters. The drinking suitability was analysed based on drinking water quality index, and it showed that 68.52 and 70.37% of samples from the PRM and POM seasons are classified as poor groundwater for drinking. The groundwater's suitability for irrigation was analysed based on various irrigation quality indices, and it highlighted that most of the groundwater was suitable for agriculture. Industrial suitability was determined by several industrial quality indices. Due to the simultaneous application of several indices, a sample is categorised into many water quality groups, introducing bias into handling and decision-making. The Mamdani fuzzy inference system creates a unique integrated industrial water quality index to address this issue. The index revealed that only 24.07 and 9.26% of samples from the PRM and POM seasons, respectively, were free of corrosion or scaling, while the remaining samples were inappropriate for industrial use.

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