title: Assessing the vulnerability of groundwater to pollution in Ireland based on the COST-620 Pan-European approach.
abstract: The aim of the analysis was to assess the intrinsic and specific vulnerability of groundwater to pollution from pesticides in Ireland at the national scale. A methodology to incorporate the effect of groundwater recharge in vulnerability assessment is described which can be particularly useful for the evaluation of dilution of groundwater pollutants. A sensitivity analysis using Monte-Carlo simulation revealed that the most important parameters of the model were subsoil (ρ = 0.79) and topsoil (ρ = 0.72), which is in agreement with the current knowledge of the parameters that have a significant effect on groundwater vulnerability in Ireland. The intrinsic vulnerability assessment was verified using total organic carbon (TOC) concentration in groundwater, a novel approach for the validation of groundwater vulnerability methods at regional scales. A statistical analysis showed that TOC concentration was significantly different (p < 0.001) between watersheds classified as highly vulnerable and watersheds classified as less vulnerable, providing evidence that the developed method can effectively classify karst areas in terms of groundwater vulnerability.
authors.affiliation: School of Biosystems Engineering, College of Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Michail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pavlis
authors.affiliation: School of Biosystems Engineering, College of Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Electronic address: enda.cummins@ucd.ie.
authors.forename: Enda
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cummins
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis; D005060:Europe; D060587:Groundwater / Q000737:chemistry*; D007494:Ireland; D011891:Rain; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014873:Water Pollutants; D002244:Carbon
keywords: Intrinsic vulnerability; Karst groundwater; Sensitivity analysis; Specific vulnerability; Total organic carbon; Validation