Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Hydrogeochemical characterization and quality assessment of

groundwater based on integrated-weight water quality index in a
concentrated urban area
Yanyan Gao a, b, Hui Qian a, b, *, Wenhao Ren a, b, Haike Wang a, b, Fengxia Liu a, b,
Faxuan Yang a, b
a
School of Water and Environment, Chang’an University, Xi’an, 710054, Shaanxi, China
b
Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecological Effect in Arid Region of Ministry of Education, Chang’an University, Xi’an, 710054, Shaanxi, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Clean and safe groundwater is the basic guarantee for social and human sustainable development. With
Received 13 August 2019 the increasing groundwater pollution, it is essential to characterize hydrogeochemistry and assess
Received in revised form groundwater quality accurately for water supply purpose. In this study, investigation of groundwater was
21 January 2020
conducted in the urban area of Xi’an, which has a more than 3100 years glorious city history. 97
Accepted 7 March 2020
Available online 11 March 2020
groundwater samples were collected from domestic tube wells for physical and chemical analysis. Re-
sults showed that groundwater in the study area was predominantly the HCO3eCa and HCO3eCa$Mg
Handling Editor: Lincoln C. Wood type, which were controlled by multiple processes of water-rock interaction, evaporation, cation ex-
change etc. Some samples fall in Zone 4 (mixed type) and Zone 2 (SO4eNa type) in Piper diagram,
Keywords: indicating the complex influence of both rock-water interactions and anthropogenic activities. To assess
Groundwater groundwater quality reasonably, an innovative integrated-weight water quality index (IWQI) was pro-
IWQI posed by combining objective and subjective weights through additive model. The calculated weights
Hydrogeochemistry showed that integrated weights balanced the relationship between subjective expertise about impacts of
Order relation analysis method
chemical components on human health risk and objective entropy information of ion concentration. The
Entropy weight method
high integrated weight for F
(0.237), NO2eN (0.104) and HCO
3 (0.103) indicated their significant in-
Ancient pollution
fluences on groundwater quality. According to the IWQI, overall situation of groundwater in the study
area was described as good, while only 9.4% of groundwater samples was of medium to poor quality and
unsuitable for drinking. Investigation and historical documents data showed that this poor groundwater
quality in the city centre can be attributed to the low terrain, special characteristics of loess deposit,
modern pollution in recent decades and the migration of ancient pollutants over one millennia. The
sensitive analysis of IWQI indicated the innovative IWQI could describe the overall water quality reliably,
stably and correctly, and have the potential suitability for extensive application.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction degradation has became a global issue owing to its widespread

Groundwater as the world’s largest freshwater resource provides
drinking water to billions of people around the world (Aeschbach-
Hertig and Gleeson, 2012; An et al., 2016; Jasechko et al., 2017).
Clean and safe groundwater is crucially important for social and
human sustainable development. However, with the acceleration of
urbanization and increasing waste discharge, groundwater quality
* Corresponding author. School of Water and Environment, Chang’an University,
Xi’an, 710054, Shaanxi, China.
E-mail address: qianhui@chd.edu.cn (H. Qian).
distribution and its potential consequences to human health
(Abelson, 1984; Bulut et al., 2020; Kaur and Garg, 2019; Liu et al.,
2019a; Grimmeisen et al., 2017). Most cities in the world, espe-
cially in arid areas, are facing double water stresses caused by
groundwater depletion and water quality deterioration (Cheng et al.,
2019; Das et al., 2019; Liu and Li, 2019). According to China
Geological Survey, 97% of 195 cities in China is facing groundwater
pollution problems, and groundwater in 16 of the 17 provincial
capital cities in the northern China has been seriously polluted
(http://www.cgs.gov.cn/ddztt/jqthd/dzzkgg/zwkd/201603/
t20160309_296805.html). As large population is concentrated in the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121006
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006
cities, groundwater is bound to be polluted by frequent and intensive
human activities (Wang et al., 2019), and the no longer clean
groundwater in turn threatens the health of thousands of people.
Therefore, safe and hygienic drinking water has been a primary focus
of water resource management and related researches (An et al.,
2016; Cai et al., 2019). To ensure safe water supply and solve or
reduce the severity of groundwater quality degradation, it is essen-
tial to identify the status of groundwater quality and assess the
suitability of groundwater for drinking (Edmunds et al., 2003;
Mattos et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2017).
Xi’an, being the capital city of Shaanxi Province, is a modern
mega city with a population over ten million. The city is located in
a semi-arid area of northwest China. Historically, thirteen Dy-
nasties had set their capitals in Xi’an. Xi’an represents an impor-
tant birthplace of Chinese civilization and is the starting point of
the ancient Silk Road. Being the political, economic and cultural
centre of ancient China for thousands years, large numbers of
people once lived here, and groundwater pollution had been a
serious problem from ancient time. For example, after the West-
ern Han Dynasty (8 A.D.), the groundwater pollution in Xi’an
forced the city center to be moved to southeast many times. In this
semi-arid loess region, owing to the weak renewable ability of
groundwater and high adsorption ability of loess to pollutants,
groundwater pollution is hard to control and remove once it
occurred. Therefore, groundwater quality in this ancient capital
can typically represent the comprehensive effects of natural
evolution, modern and historical human activity. To our best
knowledge, the effects of ancient pollution on modern or current
groundwater quality are scarcely considered in most studies.
Chemical components in groundwater, as the “Gene Bank” that
marks the evolution of water environment, are generally used to
elucidate the sources of major ions and distinguish the effects of
natural and anthropogenic factors (Khalid et al., 2018). Due to the
weak renewable ability of groundwater in some areas, hydro-
chemical characteristic is also a main approach to acquire infor-
mation about ancient pollution. Moreover, knowledge of
hydrochemical characteristics is the prerequisite for assessing
suitability of groundwater for drinking purpose.
Protection of groundwater quality, which plays a key role in
providing cleaner and safer drinking water for people, requires the
combined efforts of many partners such as water resource man-
agers, water suppliers, lawmakers and public (Abtahi et al., 2015).
Considering the different professional backgrounds of the public,
information about groundwater quality needs to be reported in a
concise manner (Nasirian, 2007). Therefore, traditional methods
such as individual parameter assessment of water quality were
replaced by water quality index (WQI), which was firstly developed
by Horton (1965). WQI integrates large numbers of individual
groundwater chemical component into an easily expressible and
understood format (a single score) through selecting and weighting
the water quality parameters and applying an aggregation function
(Abtahi et al., 2015). Moreover, it has been an effective approach to
communicate water quality information to decision makers, and is
widely used in numerous water quality assessment works (Batabyal
and Chakraborty, 2015; Chen et al., 2019; Das Kangabam et al.,
2017; Molekoa et al., 2019; Nath et al., 2018; Vasanthavigar et al.,
2010).
Despite the widespread application of WQI, its drawbacks such
as subjective weights, inflexible structure and inadequate input
parameters are obvious, and the efforts to develop improved WQI
have been continued (Abtahi et al., 2015; Mohebbi et al., 2013).
The weights in WQI determine the relative importance of each
parameter in the overall water quality, so reasonable weights have
critical influence on the accuracy of those results (Liang et al.,
2019). However, weights are traditionally assigned by experts
according to their practical experiences and local hydrogeological
condition, and different experts may have different preferences,
which lead to subjective final WQI scores with multiple un-
certainties (Chen et al., 2019; Kamrani et al., 2016; Du et al.,
2020)). To avoid the subjectivity of traditional weights, entropy-
weighted water quality index (EWQI) was developed, which
determined the weights based on the amount of useful informa-
tion with the provided data (Shannon, 1948; Castellano et al.,
2013; Kamrani et al., 2016; Li et al., 2015; Piplani and Wetjens,
2007; Amiri et al., 2014). Although the advantages of the en-
tropy theory’s application have been observed, many of its limits
still need to be improved, which include: 1) entropy-weights re-
lies excessively on the objective data that cannot reflect the
practical experience of experts (Xu et al., 2018); 2) entropy-
weights have instable characteristics, which are easy to change
with sample sizes and values; 3) the relationship between in-
dicators and objective are often neglected when calculating the
weights, resulting in confusing and unexplainable evaluations (Liu
et al., 2019b). Another common method to determine index
weight is the order relation analysis (G1 method), which is an
improved analytic hierarchy process and subjectively takes into
full account of the relationships between indices and objective. In
this study, an integrated-weight water quality index (IWQI) is
developed by incorporating subjective weights (determined by G1
method) and objective weights (determined by entropy weight
method) to assess the suitability of groundwater for drinking
purpose.
The present study took Xi’an as an example to conduct integrated
investigation of groundwater environment and quality assessment.
Our objectives are to (1) identify the hydrogeochemical character-
istics and sources of major ions using multiple statistical analysis and
hydrogeochemical methods; (2) assess suitability of groundwater for
drinking purpose based on an improved integrated-weight water
quality index (IWQI). The results are expected to provide scientific
information on groundwater resource management and sustainable
development in Xi’an, and be a reference for cities with similar sit-
uation in the world.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
Xi’an, located in the centre of the Guanzhong Basin, is the capital
of Shaanxi province and is one a key central city in northwest China
(He et al., 2008). Xi’an stretches from longitude 107400 e109 490
and latitudes 33 420 e34 450 , with a concentrated urban area of
824.7 km2. The main urban area consists of six regions: Baqiao,
Beilin, Lianhu, Weiyang, Yanta and Xincheng. Population in these
regions is approximately 4.46 million, which represents around
fifty percent of the population in Xi’an. As seen from Fig. 1, ~60% of
the study area has been urbanized.
Xi’an is bound by the Qinling Mountains in the south and the
Wei River to the north. The climate of the study area is dominated
by a warm sub-humid continental climate, with average annual
evaporation (852.7 mm/year) exceeding average annual precipita-
tion (650 mm/year). Eight rivers, namely the Wei River, Jing River,
Feng River, Lao River, Jue Rive, Hao River, Chan River and Ba River
constitute the river network of Xi’an, which is famous for “Eight
rivers around Chang’an” (Xi’an is called Chang’an in ancient time).
The topography of the study area shows the ladder-like distribution
from the Qinling Mountains to the Wei River, turning from the al-
luvial fan of mountains to loess tablelands and river terraces. Loess
tableland is mainly distributed in the southeast of Xi’an. An alluvial
plain with a thick, overlying Quaternary sediment is widely
distributed along rivers.
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006 3

Fig. 1. Study area and groundwater sample sites.

2.2. Geology and hydrogeology
Xi’an is located in the Guanzhong Basin, between the Ordos
block and the Qinling fault uplift. With the intense geotectonic
movement, several active faults of different periods, scale and di-
rections are developed. Xi’an fault depression has a very thick
Cenozoic strata deposited (4000e5000 m), and its basement
consists of Archean - Proterozoic metamorphic rocks and Yan-
shannian intrusive rocks. The Quaternary stratum is composed
primarily of sands, gravels, silty clay, clay and loess. The tertiary
sandstones are dominated by quartz, feldspars, calcite, dolomite
and plagioclase (Chen et al., 2019). The phreatic aquifer is generally
less than 100 m thick. Due to the developed water system, the
depth of groundwater in the alluvial plain is very shallow, less than
4 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

10 m. Therefore, local residents living in the suburbs drilled wells in
their homesteads and farmlands for domestic or irrigation water
supplies. In the loess tableland, due to the low-permeability of the
thick loess deposit, the groundwater table is deep and shallow
wells are ~30e80 m deep.
2.4. Water quality assessment method
2.4.1. Overall framework of IWQI
The calculation of IWQI includes four steps: subjective weight
calculation, objective weight calculation, calculation of integrated
weight, and groundwater quality assessment based on IWQI. The
overall framework of IWQI is shown in Fig. 2.

2.3. Sample collection and analysis

2.4.2. Step 1: subjective weight based on G1 method
A total of 97 groundwater samples across the study area were
The order relation analysis method (also called the G1 method)
collected in July 2018. Groundwater was pumped from domestic
determines the index weight based on the theory of AHP (Kamrani
tube wells or public water-supply wells with depths <100 m. Before
et al., 2016). The advantage of this method is that it is not necessary
sampling, wells were pumped for 5e10 min to avoid the effects of
to conduct the consistency checking of a judgement matrix. The
stagnant water in the pipeline (Gao et al., 2019). Groundwater
specific steps for calculating index weight by the G1 method are as
samples were then stored in pre-cleaned 500 mL polyethylene
follows:
bottles, labelled and stored at 4  C until laboratory analysis. Water
analysis, including total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH),
(i) Determination of order relationship of evaluated parameters.
major anions (Cl
, SO2
2

þ þ 2þ
4 , CO3 , HCO3 ), major cations (K , Na , Ca , Parameters are ranked in order by the relative importance for
Mg2þ) and other minor elements (F
, NH4eN, NO3eN, NO2eN)
the evaluated object; those results are recorded as x1>x2> …
were conducted in the Shaanxi Bureau of Geology and Mineral
>xi> … >xn, where xi > xj indicates parameter xi is important
laboratory. The collection, storage, transport and analysis of
(or not less) than parameter xj for evaluated results.
groundwater samples strictly followed the Standard methods of the
(ii) Determination of the importance scale. The relative impor-
Ministry of Health of People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Stan-
tance ri is defined using Eq. (1):
dardization Administration of PRC (2006). To validate the quality of
water analysis, only water samples with a charge balance error of wi
1
ri ¼ ; i ¼ 2; 3; 4; …; n (1)
less than ±5% were accepted. wi
In this study, statistical analysis was applied to identify the
general characteristics of groundwater chemistry. PCA was used to where, wi-1 and wi are the weight of parameter xi-1 and parameter
estimate possible factors affecting groundwater chemistry by SPSS xi, respectively. The relative importance (ri) can be determined by
20.0. Piper diagram was used to clarify hydrochemical facies with decision makers according to the relative importance of two pa-
the help of AqQA software (RockWare, Inc. 2004). Gibbs diagram, rameters (xi-1 and xi), while wi-1 and wi are unknown and should be
saturation index (SI) and ratio plots were prepared to thoroughly calculated by Eq. (1). The relative importance values ri are deter-
investigate major ion sources. mined according to Table 1.

Fig. 2. The overall framework of IWQI.

 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006 5

(iii) Calculate index weight. The weights wi of each parameter are Table 2
calculated as follows: Groundwater quality classifications for drinking based on
IWQI values.
!
1
X
n Y
n IWQI values Water quality
wn ¼ 1 þ ri (2) <50 Excellent
k¼2 i¼k 50e100 Good
100e150 Medium
wi
1 ¼ ri  wi ; i ¼ 2; 3; 4; …; n (3) 150e200 Poor
>200 Extremely poor

(iv) Determination of index weight. In order to reduce the in-

fluence of a single expert experience and preference on index
weights, several experts should be invited to rank parame- (ii) Calculate the information entropy using Eqs. (7) and (8):
ters in order and determinate the importance scale ri ac-
cording to the relative importance of each parameter. 1 X m
ej ¼
f lnfij (7)
Suppose there are L1 of the L experts give the same order as: ln m i¼1 ij
x1 >x2> … >xi> … >xn, and other L2 of the L experts give
another different order. For each parameter, the subjective ,
  m 
X 
weight wsi of parameter xi determined by L experts is fij ¼ yij þ 10
4 yij þ 10
4 (8)
calculated by Eq. (4): i¼1

L1 X
L1
L XL2
Lm X
Lm where ej is the information entropy of the jth parameter. 10
4 is
wsi ¼ w*ki þ 2 w*kj þ… þ w*kp (4) used to ensure the formula is meaningful.
L L L
k¼1 k¼1 k¼1

(iii) Calculate the entropy weight (objective weight: woj) with Eq.
where, wki* is the relative weight of parameter xi calculated ac-
(9):
cording to the kth of the L1 experts. L ¼ L1þL2þL3þ … þLm.
1
ej
2.4.3. Step 2: objective weight based on entropy-weighted method woj ¼ n 
(9)
P 
Information entropy proposed by Shannon objectively reflects 1
ej
useful information because it is based on original data (Shannon, j¼1

1948). The smaller entropy values mean a larger amount of effec-

tive information, resulting in the larger corresponding weight. The
calculation of this objective weight by entropy-weighted method is
2.4.4. Step 3: determination of integrated weight
as follows:
There are two ways to integrate subjective and objective
weights: (1) multiplicative model (Eq. (10)); (2) additive model (Eq.
(i) Normalize the initial matrix. The initial eigenvalue matrix X
(11)):
can be expressed as follows:
2 3 wsj woj
x11 x12 / x1n wj ¼ ; j ¼ 1; 2; :::; n (10)
P
n
6 x21 x22 / x2n 7 wsj woj
6
X ¼4 7 (5)
/ / / / 5 j¼1

xm1 xm2 / xmn

wj ¼ pwsj þ ð1
pÞwoj ; j ¼ 1; 2; /; n (11)
where, m (i ¼ 1, 2, 3, …, m) represents water samples and n (j ¼ 1, 2,
3, …, n) represents the evaluated parameters. where, wj is the integrated weight of jth parameter; wsj is the
According to the attribution and contribution of each parameter subjective weight determined by order relation analysis; woj is the
on the evaluated object, the feature indexes may be divided into objective weight determined by the entropy-weighted method; p is
two types: benefit type and cost type. For these two types, the the preference coefficient and p2[0,1].
standardization treatments are expressed as Eq. (6), and the stan- Although multiplicative model has a simple calculation, it lacks
dard matrix is expressed as Y¼(yij)(mn): flexibility when constructing an object. For the additive model,
8 x
x 
however, the preference coefficient P can minimize the difference
> ij ij min between an integrated weight and a single weight (objective or
>
>     benefit type
< x
x
ij max ij min subjective weight) by weighting. The preference coefficient P can
yij ¼   (6) be calculated by minimizing the following Eq. (12):
>
> x
x
>
:   ij max  ij cost type n h
xij max
xij min X 2  2 i
zmin ¼ wj
wsj þ wj
woj (12)
j¼1
Table 1
The values of relative importance.

ri Description

1.0 Parameter xi-1 is important as parameter xi 2.4.5. Step 4: groundwater quality assessment based on IWQI
1.2 Parameter xi-1 is slightly more important than parameter xi The Water Quality Index (WQI) is an efficient technique to assess
1.4 Parameter xi-1 is obviously more important than parameter xi the suitability of groundwater for drinking purposes (Tian et al.,
1.6 Parameter xi-1 is strongly more important than parameter xi 2019). The quality rating scale (qj) of each parameter is calculated
1.8 Parameter xi-1 is extremely more important than parameter xi
using Eq. (13) (Talib et al., 2019):
6 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

According to a statistical analysis of hydrochemical parameters,

Cj
qj ¼  100
Sj
where qj is the quality rating scale of each parameter; Cj is the
concentration of each ion in mg/L, and Sj is the WHO standard
(2011) for each ion in mg/L.
Then, the sub-index (SI) and IWQI for each sample are calculated
by Eqs. (14) and (15):
SIj ¼ Wj  qj
X
n average value of 438.35 mg/L. Results showed that 86.6% of
IWQI ¼ SIj
j¼1
where SIj and Wj are the sub-index and relative weight of each
parameter, respectively.
According to IWQI values, groundwater can be classified into
five ranks, ranging from “excellent groundwater” to “extremely
poor groundwater” (Amiri et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2019). The
classification of groundwater quality based on WQI is shown in
Table 2. When the IWQI value is lower than 100, groundwater is
good enough and suitable for drinking. Medium groundwater
quality indicates that water can be used for drinking conditionally
due to some parameters slightly exceeding the standard. Ground-
water with an IWQI value higher than 150 becomes unfit for
drinking, because some parameters might seriously exceed the
corresponding presumable limits.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. General characteristics of groundwater
The statistical analysis of hydrochemical parameters for
groundwater are helpful for acknowledging the law of enrichment
and variation of hydrochemical components. Table 3 shows the
mean, maximum, minimum, standard deviation (SD) and coeffi-
cient of variation (CV) for each parameter. These results showed
that groundwater in this area was generally neutral to slightly
alkaline with pH values ranging from 7.1 to 9.1. TDS, as an important
measure of water palatability, ranged from 117 to 4415 mg/L and
17.53% of samples exceed acceptable limits (1000 mg/L) for drink-
ing purposes, indicting the taste of some water samples is distorted
due to high TDS.
Table 3
Statistical analysis of hydrochemical parameters of groundwater samples (units of
all parameters are mg/L, except pH).
the abundance of cations was Naþ z Ca2þ > Mg2þ > Kþ. The con-
(13)
centrations of Naþ and Ca2þ ranged from 13.3 to 580 mg/L and
5.0e481 mg/L, with average values of 106.32 mg/L and 95.90 mg/L,
respectively. Naþ and Ca2þ were the predominant cations in
groundwater, and 8.25% and 2.06% of samples had high concen-
trations of Naþ and Ca2þ respectively, exceeding the WHO guideline
value (200 mg/L). Mg2þ and Kþ values ranged from 0 to 159 mg/L
and 0.59e150 mg/L, with average values of 48.01 mg/L and
8.54 mg/L, respectively.
(14) Anion concentrations were on the order of HCO
2


3 > SO4 > Cl .
The concentration of HCO
3 ranged from 42.7 to 906 mg/L with an
(15) groundwater was not suitable for direct drinking, owing to the high
levels of HCO
3 (>250 mg/L). The observed concentrations of Cl


2

and SO4 were ranged from 3.5 to 436 mg/L and 2.78e1633 mg/L,
with mean values of 80.39 mg/L and 157.32 mg/L, respectively. A
total of 4.12% and 11.34% of groundwater samples had high con-
centrations of Cl
and SO2
4 , both exceeding permissible limits
(250 mg/L).
Total hardness (TH) in groundwater reflects the lithological
properties of the strata. Generally, TH in water is commonly clas-
sified into five degrees (Rezaei and Hassani, 2018): very soft
(0e75 mg/L), soft (75e150 mg/L), moderately hard (150e300 mg/
L), hard (300e450 mg/L) and very hard (>450 mg/L). TH values
varied from 19.5 to 1007 mg/L with an average of 402.33 mg/L.
About 30 samples were hard, and 12.37% of samples were very
hard. Fluoride, as a toxicology index, should not exceed 1.5 mg/L in
groundwater according to WHO guidelines. However, approxi-
mately 12.37% of samples were beyond acceptable limits, with a
fluoride maximum of 1.99 mg/L. This may be attributed to the
dissolution of fluoride-bearing- minerals.
Nitrogen pollution comes primarily from ammonia nitrogen,
nitrate and nitrite pollution. Because of intensive fertilizer appli-
cation and sewage discharges, nitrogen pollution widely occurs in
both agricultural regions as well as urban areas (Fulazzaky et al.,
2015). As shown in Table 3, the NH4eN concentrations in
groundwater samples ranged from 0 to 8.5 mg/L with an average
of 0.17 mg/L, while NO3eN concentrations were 0e135.48 mg/L
with a mean of 10.44 mg/L and levels of NO2eN in groundwater
samples were between 0 and 2.26 mg/L with a mean of 0.05 mg/L.
Of the samples tested, 4.12%, 12.37% and 1.03% showed high levels
NH4eN, NO3eN and NO2eN, respectively, indicating that nitrate
pollution was more serious and wider than other two in urban
areas of Xi’an. Additionally, spatial variations of NH4eN, NO3eN
and NO2eN were strong, which can be identified by CV (much
higher than 100%).
3.2. Principal component analysis (PCA)

Parameters Mean Max Min SD CV(%) WHO (2011) % of SEL PCA is a powerful technique to reveal the interrelationship of
pH 7.60 9.1 7.1 0.33 4.28 6.5e8.5 3.09 geochemical variables by reducing the dimensionality of a large
TDS 806.80 4415 117 571.46 70.83 1000 17.53 number of parameters (Hu et al., 2013). In this study, PCA analysis
Kþ 8.54 150 0.59 24.31 284.69 e e was applied to the concentrations of TH, TDS, F
, NH4eN, NO2eN,
Naþ 106.32 580 13.3 82.56 77.65 200 8.25 NO3eN and the major ions, to identify the dominant factors con-
Ca2þ 95.90 481 5.01 66.35 69.19 200 2.06
Mg2þ 48.01 159 0 32.58 67.86 150 1.03
trolling the chemical components of groundwater. Three principal
Cl
80.39 436 3.5 70.80 88.07 250 4.12 components (PCs) with eigenvalues above 1 were retained, which
SO2-4 157.32 1633 2.78 196.13 124.67 250 11.34 explained 69.15% of the total variance. PC1 explained 45.95% of total
HCO
3 438.35 906 42.7 177.11 40.40 250 86.60 variance and had strong loadings on Naþ, Cl
, Mg2þ, SO2
4 , TH, TDS,
TH


402.33 1007 19.5 192.28 47.79 450 38.14
NO3eN and HCO
3 (Fig. 3). The results of PC1 indicate that multiple
F 0.54 1.99 0.03 0.37 69.00 1.5 12.37
NH4eN 0.17 8.56 0 0.87 502.5 0.5 4.12 processes including silicate, carbonate weathering and evaporite
NO3eN 10.44 135.48 0 18.48 176.9 20.0 12.37 dissolution may be the dominant sources of these ions. PC2 ac-
NO2eN 0.05 2.26 0 0.23 497.6 1.0 1.03 counts for 14.17% of the total variance, with strong loadings on Ca2þ,
SD, standard deviation; CV (%), coefficient of variation; % of SEL, % of samples F
and pH. The collection of these parameters reflects geogenic
exceeding acceptable limit. contamination such as fluorite dissolution. PC3 accounts for 9.04%
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006
Fig. 3. Varimax rotated component scores of groundwater in the study area.
of the total variance, with strong loadings on NH4eN, indicating the
influence of human activities. The information provided by NO2eN
was ignored due to its low concentration.
3.3. Hydrochemical facies
Hydrochemical facies were defined as “denote the diagnostic
chemical aspect of water solutions occurring in hydrologic sys-
tems”, which “reflect the response of chemical processes in the
lithologic framework and the pattern of water flow in it” (Gime
nez-
Forcada, 2014; Jain et al., 2018). A Piper diagram presents
comprehensive information about hydrochemical facies and types
of groundwater (Chen et al., 2020; Pant et al., 2018; Piper, 1944). On
the cation plot, most samples fall in the center (Zone B), indicating
no obvious dominance of any cation in the groundwater. About 30%
of the groundwater samples had relatively higher concentrations of
calcium, which appeared in the lower left corner (Zone A). The
anion diagram showed that most samples were found in Zone E,
suggesting the dominance of HCO
3 and signifying the weathering
of the carbonate dominated lithology. The central diamond field
showed the overall characteristics of groundwater chemistry (Pant
et al., 2018). As shown in Fig. 4, most samples were concentrated in
Zone 1, indicating the dominance of HCO3eCa or HCO3eCa$Mg type
in the groundwater. Generally, inland meteoric water is dominated
by Ca2þ and HCO
3 , so it is logical to suggest that most of shallow
groundwater in Xi’an may be recharged by fresh water or precipi-
tation (Sridharan and Nathan, 2018). Few samples fall in Zone 4
(mixed type) and Zone 2 (SO4eNa type), representing the complex
influence of both rock-water interactions and anthropogenic
activities.
3.4. Sources of major ions and controlling factors of
hydrogeochemistry
A Gibbs diagram is beneficial for clarifying the sources of major
ions by identifying the influence of precipitation, evaporation and
rock weathering on groundwater (Gibbs, 1970). Based on the ratio
of Naþ/(NaþþCa2þ) and Cl
/(Cl-þ HCO
3 ) with respect to TDS in
7
Fig. 4. Piper diagram for groundwater.
groundwater, Gibbs divided the plot into three domains:
Rockewater dominance, Evaporation dominance and Precipitation
dominance (Sridharan and Nathan, 2018). As shown in Fig. 5, most
samples fall in the rock dominance zone, suggesting that rock
weathering or rock-water interactions are the primary sources
controlling groundwater chemistry and hydrochemical evolution.
Only a few samples were influenced by evaporation due to the
shallow groundwater depth along rivers.
Hydrogeochemical processes such as water-rock interaction,
evaporation, cation exchange etc. played vital roles in the formation
of groundwater hydrochemistry. For example, the weathering of
silicates (K-, Na- and Ca-feldspar and montmorillonite) generally
generates Ca2þ, Kþ, Naþ, Mg2þ, HCO
3 and Si; the weathering of
carbonates (dolomite and calcite) generates HCO
2þ
and Mg2þ,
3 , Ca
while the dissolution of evaporites (gypsum and halite) mainly
generate SO2

2þ þ þ 2þ
4 , Cl , Ca , K , Na and Mg (Pant et al., 2018). In
order to investigate the possible origin of each major ion, plots of
Naþ versus Cl
, Naþ versus TZþ, Ca2þ versus SO2
2þ
4 , Mg versus
SO4 , CAI-I versus CAI-II and (Ca þMg )- (SO4 þ HCO

2
2þ 2þ 2-
3 ) versus
(NaþþKþ-Cl-) are illustrated in Fig. 6.
Previous studies suggested that an equimolar ratio of Naþ/Cl

indicated the dominance of halite dissolution for sodium in
groundwater. However, the ratio of Naþ/Cl
plotted in Fig. 6a is
higher than 1, suggesting the excessive sodium may come from
other sources such as silicate weathering or cation exchange. If
silicate weathering is the dominant sodium source, the most
abundant anion should be HCO
3 (Eq. (16) and (17)) (Rajmohan and
Elango, 2003). This conclusion is verified by the abundance of HCO
3
in groundwater of Xi’an. In addition, the ratio of Naþ and total
cations (TZþ) is helpful in illustrating silicate weathering (Fig. 6b). If
samples located around Naþ ¼ 0.5 TZþ line, then the contribution of
silicate weathering is dominant in sodium groundwater concen-
tration. Nevertheless, the results showed that samples fell below
the 1:2 line, indicating that the silicate weathering occurred, but
other hydrochemical processes also affected the concentration of
Naþ.
8 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

3Na1=3 Al7=3 Si11=3 O10 ðOHÞ2 þ30H2 O þ 6OH
/Naþ þ7AlðOHÞ

4 þ11H2 SiO4 (16)

suggesting that the dissolution of gypsum may be the dominant

2NaAlSi3 O8 þ2CO2 þ3H2 O/2Naþ þ2HCO

3 þH4 Al2 Si2 O9
Cation exchange processes play a pivotal role in groundwater
chemistry and may be responsible for excessive Naþ in ground-
water. Chloro-alkaline indices (CAI-I and CAI-II) proposed by
Schoeller were used to identify specific ion exchange (Zaidi et al.,
2015). The indices can be calculated using the following formula
(Eq. (18)):
Cl

ðNaþ þ K þ Þ
CAI
I ¼
Cl

Cl

ðNaþ þ K þ Þ
CAI
II ¼
HCO
2
2

2018). As shown in Fig. 7, the SI of halite, gypsum and fluorite were
3 þ SO4 þ CO3 þ NO3
where concentrations of all ions are in meq/L.
If Naþ in groundwater is replaced by Ca2þ or Mg2þ absorbed on
the surface of soil, both CAI-I and CAI-II are greater than 0 (Li et al.,
2012). However, negative values of CAI-I and CAI-II indicate Naþ
absorbed on the surface of fine-grained materials of the aquifers
can be replaced by Ca2þ (Mg2þ) in groundwater, resulting in an
increase of groundwater Naþ. As shown in Fig. 6c, most samples
plotted in the lower left part indicated reverse ion exchange, which
led to the increase of Naþ and the decrement of Ca2þ (Mg2þ) in
groundwater. Additionally, plots of (Ca2þþMg2þ)-(HCO
3 þ SO4 )
2

þ -
versus (Na -Cl ) were used to further indicate the involvement of
ion exchange between groundwater and its host environment
(Talib et al., 2019). In Fig. 6d, a linear relationship between
(Ca2þþMg2þ)-(HCO
2
þ -
3 þ SO4 ) and (Na -Cl ) was established. The
slope of fitting line was close to
1, indicating a reverse cation
exchange between Naþ and Ca2þ (Mg2þ).
Moreover, Ca2þ/SO2
2þ 2

4 and Mg /SO4 were used to identify the
source of Ca2þ, Mg2þ and SO2
4 . As shown in Fig. 6e, a relatively
good correlation between Ca2þ and SO2
2
4 (R ¼ 0.72) was observed,
(17) source of Ca2þ and SO2
4 (Bahir et al., 2018). However, a poor rela-
tionship between Mg2þ and SO2
4 was observed in Fig. 6f, indicating
different sources of Mg2þ and SO2
4 . The relatively high concen-
trations of Mg2þ in some groundwater samples may originate from
the Mg-montmorillonite or dolomite, while the extremely high
concentrations of SO2
4 in several groundwater samples may come
from effluent discharge or fertilizer in the outskirts of the city.
Mineral dissolution and precipitation processes have great in-
fluence on groundwater chemistry, intuitively reflected by satura-
tion indices (SI). SI values indicate the saturation state of
(18) groundwater samples for corresponding minerals (SI > 0, over-
saturation; SI ¼ 0, equilibrium; SI < 0, under saturated) (Pant et al.,
scattered in the field of under saturation, while groundwater is
oversaturated (though some are at equilibrium) with calcite and
dolomite. These results indicate that carbonate minerals have
substantial control of groundwater geochemistry and are consis-
tent with the dominance of CaeHCO3 or Ca$MgeHCO3 type.
According to PCA analysis, PC2 had strong loadings on Ca2þ, pH
and F
; F
was positively related to pH but inversely related to
Ca2þ. Studies proposed that OH
in alkaline soda water could ex-
change F
from a host environment (Eq. (19)) (Pi et al., 2015; Wen
et al., 2013). If hydrolysis of F-bearing silicates is the only source of
F
, then concentrations of Ca2þ, as well as NaþþKþ, should increase
with F
concentration (Wen et al., 2013). However, the negative
correlation between F
and Ca2þ indicates that dissolution of
fluorite appears to be responsible for the enrichment of F
(Eq.
(20)). A high concentration of HCO
3 in groundwater can promote
fluorite dissolution, release of F
and precipitation of carbonate
minerals (calcite or dolomite) (Eq. (21)) (Hu et al., 2013; Wen et al.,
2013). In addition, reverse cation exchange between Ca2þ/Mg2þ
and Naþ results in a decrease in the Ca2þ concentration (Chen et al.,
2019). This also promotes CaF2 dissolution. Therefore, a coupling

Fig. 5. Gibbs diagram showing main processes controlling groundwater chemistry.

 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006 9

Fig. 6. Plots of (a) Naþ vs. Cl
, (b)Naþ vs. TZþ, (c) CAI-I vs. CAI-II, (d) (Ca2þþMg2þ)-(SO2-
þ þ -
4 þ HCO3 ) vs. (Na þK -Cl ), (e) Ca
2þ
vs. SO2

4 , and (f) Mg
2þ
vs. SO2-
4
10 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

each other. However, all experts considered toxicological indexes

Fig. 7. Saturation indices of different minerals in groundwater samples.
effect of these reactions determines the hydrochemical character-
istics of groundwater in this city.
such as F
and NO2eN as very important in groundwater quality,
while pH and HCO
3 were ranked as the least important parameters
due to its little impact on human health risk. Based on Eq. (4), the
most important parameter was F
with a subjective weight of
0.375, followed by NO2eN (0.184) and NO3eN (0.136).
Entropy weight method calculated the information entropy and
then determined an objective weight. As shown in Table 5, HCO
3 had
the largest objective weight (0.191), indicating that HCO
3 provided
the largest effective information. Other large effective information
values were obtained from TH and Mg2þ with objective weights of
0.138 and 0.127, respectively. Additionally, NH4eN, NO3eN and
NO2eN provided the least effective information. These results
showed that objective weights differed significantly from subjective
weights. For example, F
was considered as the most important
parameter in the G1 method due to its toxicology, but it provided the
least effective information and had a low objective weight based on
its entropy weight. In order to obtain reasonable and more accurate
evaluation results, the experts’ subjective preferences and objective
information entropy were taken under consideration synthetically
based on the integrated weight method.
The preference coefficient P was 0.5 according to the equilib-
rium law of integrated weights (Eq. (11) and (12)). The integrated
weights are shown in Table 5. Results show that F
, NO2eN and
HCO
3 had more important effects on groundwater quality; their

KAl2 ½AlSi3 O10 F2 þ2OH
/KAl2 ½AlSi3 O10 ½OH2 þ2F
(19) integrated weights were 0.237, 0.104 and 0.103, respectively. Naþ
had the lowest integrated weight (0.038), indicating the minimum
influence on water quality.
CaF2 /Ca2þ þ2F
(20)

CaF2 þ2HCO

3 /CaCO3 þ2H2 O þ CO2 þ2F


(21) Table 5
Index weights determined by different methods.

Parameter G1 method Entropy weight Integrated weight

3.5. Assessment of groundwater quality for drinking purposes (subjective method (objective method (integrated
weight) weight) weight)

Based on the investigation of the hydrochemical characteristics pH 0.013 0.070 0.041

Naþ 0.023 0.053 0.038
in Xi’an, groundwater quality for drinking purpose is further eval-
Ca2þ 0.016 0.076 0.046
uated to ensure water supply security. In this study, suitability of Mg2þ 0.016 0.127 0.071
groundwater for drinking was evaluated by IWQI, which takes into Cl
0.027 0.063 0.045
account of experts’ experience and objective entropy information. SO2-
4 0.021 0.058 0.039
HCO
3 0.015 0.191 0.103
TDS 0.038 0.040 0.039
3.5.1. Determination of integrated weight TH 0.056 0.138 0.097
According to G1 method, four experts were invited to construct F
0.375 0.098 0.237
the order relationships and relative importance of 13 parameters. NH4eN 0.081 0.024 0.053
As shown in Table 4, the order relationships of those parameters as NO3eN 0.136 0.038 0.087
NO2eN 0.184 0.024 0.104
determined by four experts were not completely consistent with

Table 4
Relative importance and weight determined by four experts.

Parameter Expert 1 Expert 2 Expert 3 Expert 4

Relative importance Index weight Relative importance Index weight Relative importance Index weight Relative importance Index weight
ri W1i ri W2i ri W3i ri W4i

pH 1.0 0.010 1.0 0.010 1.0 0.015 1.0 0.015

Naþ 1.2 0.015 1.2 0.015 1.2 0.031 1.2 0.031
Ca2þ 1.2 0.012 1.2 0.010 1.2 0.015 1.2 0.015
Mg2þ 1.2 0.010 1.2 0.012 1.2 0.026 1.2 0.026
Cl
1.4 0.034 1.4 0.029 1.2 0.021 1.2 0.021
SO2-
4 1.4 0.024 1.4 0.021 1.2 0.018 1.2 0.018
HCO
3 1.0 0.010 1.2 0.017 1.0 0.015 1.0 0.015
TDS 1.4 0.017 1.4 0.041 1.4 0.037 1.4 0.037
TH 1.6 0.077 1.4 0.058 1.4 0.052 1.4 0.052
F
1.8 0.398 1.8 0.37 1.8 0.375 1.8 0.375
NH4eN 1.6 0.0480 1.6 0.081 1.6 0.072 1.6 0.072
NO3eN 1.8 0.221 1.6 0.129 1.8 0.116 1.8 0.116
NO2eN 1.8 0.123 1.8 0.206 1.8 0.208 1.8 0.208
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006 11

Table 6 3.5.3.2. Modern pollution. The area inside the city wall, as the most
Classification of groundwater quality according to IWQI values. famous tourist attraction and the business center, produces a great
IWQI values Water Quality Number of Samples Percentage of Samples amount of municipal domestic waste, wastewater and exhaust
<50 Excellent 36 37.5%
gases. According to Li (2014), the moat around the city wall had
50e100 Good 52 54.7% been seriously polluted by municipal sewage for approximately
100e150 Medium 6 6.3% fifty years (from the 1950s to the 2000s). Groundwater in nearby
150e200 Poor 3 3.1% areas was also polluted to some extent and difficult to restore and
200 Extremely poor 0 0%
improve in the short term. Cl
and NO
3 , which are the main ions
indicating the influences of domestic sewage (Fulazzaky et al.,
2015), are both high and coincide with IWQI in this area (Fig. 9).
3.5.2. Groundwater suitability for drinking Therefore, modern pollution combined with natural factor jointly
Based on integrated weights, IWQI was used to assess water lead to poor groundwater quality in this area.
quality for drinking purposes. The calculated WQI values of
groundwater ranged from 11.62 to 174.32, with an average of 63.24. 3.5.3.3. Ancient pollution. Ancient pollution may be also an
As shown in Table 6, of 97 groundwater samples, no samples had an important factor affecting groundwater quality in the area. In
extremely poor quality and only three samples showed poor 200 B.C (Han dynasty), the Emperor Gao of the Han established the
quality. Overall, only 9.4% of groundwater samples were unsuitable capital in Xi’an and Hanchenghu was the moat of his palaces. Since
for drinking, while 54.7% of samples had good quality and even then, Hanchenghu had been the moats of the capital for different
37.5% of samples were of excellent quality. The spatial variation of dynasties until the Sui dynasty (~800 years), the long-term, heavy
groundwater quality is shown in Fig. 8. Groundwater in most urban burden of dense population seriously polluted the groundwater.
areas of Xi’an was of good to excellent quality. However, ground- Hence, in 600 A.D (Sui dynasty), the capital moved southeastward
water around the north-west corner of city wall was not good to Zhonglou due to the bitter and salty groundwater around Han-
enough or even poor, which may be attributed to three factors: chenghu. However, groundwater drawn from wells around Zhon-
natural factors, modern pollution and ancient pollution. glou also became salty and undrinkable in 1014 A.D (Song dynasty)
(http://xadfz.xa.gov.cn/). Due to the limited self-purification ca-
3.5.3. Controlling factors analysis of poor groundwater quality pacity and the adsorption capacity of loess, groundwater in this
3.5.3.1. Natural factors. According to the topography of ground loess area was very difficult to restore once polluted. According to
surface, the most polluted area is a low-lying area. In this area, the permeability test in the field and parameter calibration by
urban surface runoff gathers and recharges groundwater. Since model, horizontal permeability coefficient and porosity of loess are
surface runoff is easily influenced or polluted in large and 1.2 m/d and 0.08, respectively (Peng et al., 2012). Additionally,
concentrated cities like Xi’an, groundwater recharged by these based on the topographic map of Xi’an, the hydraulic gradient and
waters could be of poor quality. distance from the city center (Zhonglou) to the center of pollution
Moreover, this area is covered with thick loess deposits, which is are 0.449‰ and 2272 m, respectively. By Darcy’s law, the flow ve-
characterized by high vertical permeability but poor horizonal locity is 0.0067 m/d, and it needs about 929 years for pollutants to
permeability. Thus, pollutants in the surface are hard to migrate migrate from the city center to the center of pollution. Considering
horizontally but relatively easy to infiltrate into groundwater with the effect of hydrodynamic dispersion, the estimated time for so-
precipitation. lute transport (929 years) is generally in correspondence with the

Fig. 8. Spatial distribution of IWQI in the urban area of Xi’an.

12 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

Fig. 9. (a) Spatial distribution of NO3eN; (b) Spatial distribution of Cl
; (c) Conceptual model of factors leading to poor groundwater quality in Xi’an (natural factor, modern
pollution and ancient pollution).

actual time (from 1014 to 2018).
In conclusion, influenced by natural factors such as topography
and sediment, modern pollution coupled with the accumulation of
ancient pollutants jointly led to the poor groundwater quality at the
city center (Fig. 9).
3.6. Sensitivity analysis
Sensitivity analysis is an effective method to identify the effects
of each input parameter on assessment results and test the
reasonability of selected index system. The larger the sensitivity,
the more instable the assessment results are (Lodwick et al., 1990).
Sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the influence of
each input parameter on the IWQI score according to Eq. (22).
jðVi =NÞ
ðvi =nÞj
Si ¼  100% (22)
Vi
Where, Si is the sensitivity of ith evaluating unit, Vi is the IWQI score
of ith evaluating unit, vi is the IWQI score after removing ith input
index (chemical component), N and n are the number of parameters
when calculating Vi and vi, respectively.
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006
The effects of removing each input index (chemical component)
on the IWQI score (Fig. 10) show that the average sensitivity of each
parameter is generally small, which ranges from 0.049e1.79%.
Removing HCO
3 has the most positive effect on the IWQI score,
followed by fluoride with an average sensitivity of 1.07%. The
smallest change was pH with an average sensitivity of 0.049%. The
effects of removing parameters on the IWQI score showed a good
relationship with index weights (e.g. integrated weights of HCO
3,
F
and NO2eN are 0.103, 0.237 and 0.104, respectively (Table 5)).
According to the sensitivity analysis, the IWQI was not par-
ticularity sensitive to any one parameter, indicating that the sta-
bility of water quality assessment (IWQI) is not affected by
removing any one parameter. In the other word, the IWQI does not
rely excessively on one or a few parameters, and all parameters
play a role in the water quality assessment (Abtahi et al., 2015).
The sensitivity analysis also indicated that the IWQI was devel-
oped correctly.
4. Conclusions
Groundwater is an essential and strategic resource for social and
human sustainable development, especially in arid and semi-arid
areas. However, Xi’an, as a modern mega city and historical capi-
tal city of China, has suffered from groundwater quality degrada-
tion for over one millennia. To ensure water supply security, the
hydrogeochemical characteristics and suitability for drinking of
groundwater in the concentrated area of Xi’an was investigated and
studied.
Statistics showed that the abundance of major ions in ground-
water of Xi’an was in the following order: HCO
2


3 > SO4 > Cl and
Naþ z Ca2þ> Mg2þ> Kþ. Hydrochemical facies were predominantly
HCO3eCa, HCO3eCa$Mg type, which were controlled water-rock
interaction, evaporation, cation exchange etc. Some samples fall
in Zone 4 (mixed type) and Zone 2 (SO4eNa type) in the Piper di-
agram, indicating the complex influence of both rock-water in-
teractions and anthropogenic activities. PCA revealed that multiple
water-rock weathering processes had strong loadings for Naþ, Cl
,


Mg2þ, SO2
4 , TH, TDS and HCO3 ; PC2 had strong loadings for Ca ,
2þ
pH and F
; while PC3 had strong loadings on NH4eN. The strong
positive correlation between pH and F
as well as negative
Fig. 10. Average sensitivity of removing each index (parameter) on the IWQI score.
13
correlation with Ca2þ, indicates the coupling effects of exchange
between OH
and F
, fluorite dissolution and hydrolysis of F-
bearing silicates.
An innovative method (integrated-weight water quality index-
IWQI) was proposed and applied to assess the suitability of
groundwater for drinking purpose. Assignment of weight factors
for input parameters was the main modification carried out in
IWQI. Considering the subjectivity of traditional WQI and blind
objectivity of EWQI, the integrated weights in IWQI were calculated
by combining objective weights (G1 method) with subjective
weights (entropy-weighted method) through additive model. The
integrated weights avoided the exaggerated weight of HCO
3 caused
by high concentrations effectively, and balanced the too small
weights of toxicological indexes caused by the small order of
magnitude. The integrated weighted showed that F
, NO2eN and
HCO
3 had more important effects on groundwater quality, while
Naþ had the lowest integrated weight. The IWQI values, which
were calculated with thirteen available input parameters, show
that overall situation of groundwater quality was described as good,
while only 9.4% of samples was unsuitable for drinking. The me-
dium and poor groundwater quality are primarily located in the
low-lying area around the north-west corner of city wall. Based on
the field investigation, historical documents review and solute
transport estimation, the poor quality in this area can be attributed
to natural factors, modern pollution in recent decades and the
accumulation and migration of ancient pollutants over one
millennia.
Sensitivity analysis indicated that the IWQI did not rely exces-
sively on one or a few parameters and could be used as a suitable
method to evaluate groundwater quality for drinking purpose.
Finally, based on this study, we recommend the city environ-
mental departments to adopt comprehensive treatment of surface
water, soil and groundwater according to the local natural con-
ditions. Moreover, due to the long-term effects of pollutants
migration, it is necessary to stringently monitor poor groundwater
quality regions and to carry out groundwater vulnerability studies
in Xi’an to define the fragile areas for groundwater protection, so
as to ensure the sustainable water security.
Declaration of competing interest
We declare that all authors have no any actual or potential
conflict of interest including and financial, personal or other re-
lationships with other people or organizations.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yanyan Gao: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing,
Formal analysis. Hui Qian: Writing - original draft, Writing - review
& editing, Formal analysis. Wenhao Ren: Formal analysis, Writing -
review & editing. Haike Wang: Writing - review & editing. Fengxia
Liu: Writing - review & editing. Faxuan Yang: Writing - review &
editing.
Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (41931285; 41790441; 41572236); the Public Wel-
fare Fund Project of the Ministry of Water Resources (201301084);
Investigation and evaluation of environmental hydrogeology in
Xi’an (211529180149) and Fundamental Research Foundation of the
Central Universities (300102298712; 300102290718). Their support
is gratefully acknowledged. We are sincerely grateful to the editor
and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which
have helped us to improve the quality of the paper.
14 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 260 (2020) 121006

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