Recognition of sustainability issues around water resource consumption is gaining traction under global warming and land utilization complexities. These concerns increase the challenge of gaining an appropriate comprehension of the anthropogenic activities and natural processes, as well as how they influence the quality of surface water and groundwater systems. The characteristics of water resources cause difficulties in the comprehensive assessment regarding the source types, pathways, and pollutants behaviors. As the behavior and prediction of widely known contaminants in the water resources remain challenging, some new issues have developed regarding heavy metal pollutants. The main aim of this review is to focus on certain essential pollutants’ discharge from anthropogenic activities categorized based on land-use sectors such as industrial applications (solid/liquid wastes, chemical compounds, mining activities, spills, and leaks), urban development (municipal wastes, land use practices, and others), and agricultural practices (pesticides and fertilizers). Further, important pollutants released from natural processes classified based on climate change, natural disasters, geological factors, soil/matrix, and hyporheic exchange in the aquatic environment, are also discussed. Moreover, this study addresses the major inorganic substances (nitrogen, fluoride, and heavy metals concentrations). This study also emphasizes the necessity of transdisciplinary research and cross-border communication to achieve sustainable water quality using sound science, adaptable legislation, and management systems.

Human activities continue to affect our water quality; it remains a major problem worldwide (particularly concerning freshwater and human consumption). A critical water quality index (WQI) method has been used to determine the overall water quality status of surface water and groundwater systems globally since the 1960s. WQI follows four steps: parameter selection, sub-indices, establishing weights, and final index aggregation, which are addressed in this review. However, the WQI method is a prolonged process and applied to specific water quality parameters, i.e., water consumption (particular area and time) and other purposes. Therefore, this review discusses the WQI method in simple steps, for water quality assessment, based on two multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods: (1) analytical hierarchical process (AHP); and (2) measuring attractiveness by a categorically based evaluation technique (MACBETH). MCDM methods can facilitate easy calculations, with less effort and great accuracy. Moreover, the uncertainty and eclipsing problems are also discussed—a challenge at every step of WQI development, particularly for parameter selection and establishing weights. This review will help provide water management authorities with useful knowledge pertaining to water usage or modification of existing indicators globally, and contribute to future WQI planning and studies for drinking, irrigation, domestic, and industrial purposes.

Groundwater is an important source for drinking and irrigation purposes. Due to anthropogenic activities, heavy metals have been leaching due to industrial waste and agricultural activities to the groundwater causing pollution. The assessment of groundwater quality is necessary to reduce the pollution to acceptable levels. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate heavy metal concentrations in the groundwater of the villages of Garautha Tehsil, Jhansi where the anthropogenic activities are active. The groundwater samples were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and the results were compared to the 2012 Bureau of Indian Standard limits. Three multivariate statistical methods were used to analyze the groundwater quality for irrigation and drinking purposes and to investigate the geological and hydrogeological processes. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) identified four factors responsible for the data structure by illuminating the total variance of 77.83% of the dataset. The majority of groundwater samples contained Al, Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Cr, Pb, and Fe within the acceptable limits except at few locations. However, the Al, Fe, and Mn concentration were high at a few sites due to rock–water interactions, whereas the concentration of As, Cd, and Zn were lower than their respective permissible limits in all groundwater samples. Furthermore, the groundwater quality for the use of irrigation is found to be acceptable at 19 locations, with only one high result.

The present study was carried out near an industrial area with a high-density urban population and large-scale agricultural activities. These anthropogenic activities lead to groundwater pollution and depletion of the water table. This study attempted to classify pollution sources and hydrochemical facies that help to ensure the suitability of water for agriculture and drinking. Irrigation suitability indexes, water quality index (WQI), principal component analysis (PCA), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were applied to twenty-six groundwater samples that were analysed during May 2018 for major cations and anion concentrations. The results revealed that the mechanism of groundwater chemistry has been controlled by the evaporation process with the dominance of hydrochemical facies viz., Ca-Mg-HCO_3, Na-K-Cl-SO_4, Ca-Mg-Cl, and Na-K-HCO₃. The mean dominant concentration for cations is in the order of Ca²⁺ > Na⁺ > Mg²⁺ > K⁺ while anions are HCO₃⁻ > SO₄⁻ > Cl⁻ > NO₃⁻ > CO₃²⁻ > F⁻. Irrigation suitability indexes indicated that groundwater in the study area is high in saline and low to medium alkali hazards due to industrial activities. The PCA and HCA also recognized that most of the variations are elucidated by anthropogenic processes, predominantly due to excessive population, industrial emissions, and agricultural activities. Further, the WQI of the study area suggested that 15% of the samples were unsuitable, 69% poor, and the remaining 16% only suitable for drinking purposes. The present article helps to understand the suitability and hydrochemical processes of groundwater for irrigation and drinking, which will help policymakers in water supply planning and management.

Groundwater system is very vital to humanity and the ecosystem. Aquifers are determined based on the absence or presence of water table positioning, that is, confined, unconfined, leaky aquifers and fractured aquifers. The objective of this chapter is to discuss the characteristic and assessment of groundwater within the scope of vertical distribution of GW, types of the aquifer system, types of SW-GW interface, and SW-GW interaction at both local and regional scales. The properties of the aquifer depend on the physical characteristics of the materials (porosity, permeability, specific yield, specific storage, and hydraulic conductivities) which are determined by techniques like resistivity surveys and pumping tests followed by remote sensing and geographic information system for better information on the groundwater system. Furthermore, understanding the SW-GW interactions through available methods (seepage meter, heat tracer, and environmental tracer) is useful in watershed management, that is, risk management and assessment of the aquifer system.