Can We Treat Dug-Well Water Level as Groundwater Level?

Abstract

Water lies beneath the surface of the earth broadly in two zones, saturated and unsaturated. The uppermost level of the saturated zone is called the groundwater level. This level is controlled by hydrogeological setup and human interference. The groundwater system is more complicated in alluvium than a hard rock hydrogeological setup. In an alluvium setup where thick clay belongs to the uppermost layer, a dug-well water level is never synonymous with groundwater level. The present chapter is an argument to establish that the water level of a dug well cannot be treated as the groundwater level in an area where thick clay lies on the earth surface. The water comes into the dug well either from soil seepage or from direct rainfall. This water level is directly influenced by the surrounding pond water. The present work is an attempt to look into how groundwater level and dug-water level exist in the study area distinctively. The investigation has been done on Chandernagore Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Hooghly–Chinsurah Municipality (HCM), two class-I cities of West Bengal. The supporting database is mainly primary; however, a secondary database has also been used for the better reflection of the work. The samples have been selected purposively from CMC and HCM.