title: Assessing groundwater quality in Greece based on spatial and temporal analysis.
abstract: The recent industrial growth together with the urban expansion and intensive agriculture in Greece has increased groundwater contamination in many regions of the country. In order to design successful remediation strategies and protect public health, it is very important to identify those areas that are most vulnerable to groundwater contamination. In this work, an extensive contamination database from monitoring wells that cover the entire Greek territory during the last decade (2000-2008) was used in order to study the temporal and spatial distribution of groundwater contamination for the most common and serious anionic and cationic trace element pollutants (heavy metals). Spatial and temporal patterns and trends in the occurrence of groundwater contamination were also identified highlighting the regions where the higher groundwater contamination rates have been detected across the country. As a next step, representative contaminated aquifers in Greece, which were identified by the above analysis, were selected in order to analyze the specific contamination problem in more detail. To this end, geostatistical techniques (various types of kriging, co-kriging, and indicator kriging) were employed in order to map the contaminant values and the probability of exceeding critical thresholds (set as the parametric values of the contaminant of interest in each case). The resulting groundwater contamination maps could be used as a useful tool for water policy makers and water managers in order to assist the decision-making process.
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. zoi.dokou@enveng.tuc.gr.
authors.forename: Zoi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Dokou
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece.
authors.forename: Nektarios N
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Kourgialas
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece.
authors.forename: George P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Karatzas
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006115:Greece; D060587:Groundwater / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000032:analysis*; D062206:Spatial Analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D060753:Water Quality
chemical_list: D019216:Metals, Heavy; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Geostatistics; Groundwater contamination; Heavy metals; Kriging; Major ions