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Abstract

Saudi Arabia faces a severe water scarcity, making groundwater the primary source for agricultural activities and underscoring the need to assess its quality to ensure sustainable agriculture, given its direct impact on crop performance, soil properties, and overall productivity. This study evaluated the suitability of groundwater for irrigation in the Asfan area of Al-Jumum Governorate, Makkah Region, in western Saudi Arabia. Water samples were collected from nine wells distributed across five farms and analyzed to measure a wide range of physical and chemical parameters, including temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), turbidity, salinity, electrical conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen (DOO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and biological oxygen demand (BOD). Major ions (Cl-, SO42-, Na+, Ca2+, and Mg2+), water hardness, nutrients (NH3, NO3-, and NO2-), some trace elements (Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, and Zn), and organic pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and phenols, were also identified. Most of the measured parameters exceeded the permissible guidelines for drinking and irrigation water according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards. In contrast, arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, PAHs, and phenols were not detected in any sample. The irrigation water quality index showed that 77.8% of wells fell within the high to severe restriction categories, while 22.2% were classified as low to medium restriction categories, highlighting the need for real-time groundwater monitoring and integrated risk management to support sustainable use.

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Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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