Groundwater is an important source of drinking water. Therefore; groundwater
contamination is a source of continuing concern. Groundwater contamination is unlike
surface water contamination, because it is difficult to define and harder to be contro
lled
and treated. It may also last for years or decades.
Deveh Spring area is an agricultural area in Lattakia. It suffers from many
environmental problems, so, it is very important to assess spring water vulnerability using
DRASTIC and create water vulnerability assessment map by GIS.
The map showed that the recharge water to Deveh Spring has a high and moderate
vulnerability to contamination. The area of high vulnerable groundwater zone is (82Km2),
which is about (48%) from the whole study area. The area of moderate vulnerable
groundwater zone is (40Km2), which is about (23%) from the whole study area. Sufficient
actions must be taken to protect water from contamination, through the integrated
management of groundwater resources.
The Drastic method has been used to assess the potential sensitivity of the
Groundwater In Lattakia basin using Arc GIS 9.2 Where the modified Drastic system has
been developed by combining the land uses and its divisions with general Drastic model
.As a result, final values of Drastic have been modulated into two categories "low and
moderate sensitivity"
It has been found that the introduction of the human criteriahas increased the
potentialof the moderate sensitivity of the Groundwater.
As a final result, the general content of the sensitivity map which has been
establishedfor Lattakia basin, showed, the domination of low sensitivity category in the
north western and the north eastern areas which has big location depths of the Groundwater
and high topographic altitudes.In contrast, the moderate sensitivity category dominated in
the southern areas of the study region.
The latter areas which are characterized by the existence of varied human activities
havelocation ofGroundwater levels close to the surface.