Geohydrological parameters identification and groundwater vulnerability to pollution: A Swiss case study

The alluvial aquifer of the Rhône valley in Switzerland, which extends over 110 km and occupies an area of 256 km², is of great economic importance. Its groundwaters are easily accessible and thus exploitable at low cost. However, its location in an often narrow valley with intense human activity (industry, agriculture, communications network) makes it particularly vulnerable from both a qualitative (industrial and\or agricultural pollution) and quantitative point of view (groundwater flow disturbance following civil engineering works). Since 1995, the Swiss canton of Valais has decided to compile datasets from a number of local studies (water supply, hydro-electricity, and geotechnical studies) into a regional, integrated hydrogeological framework. The realization of the study has shown the importance of GIS tool either for the computing and mapping of the first piezometric map between Brig and Léman Lake or the elaboration of vulnerability maps. The geostatistic tool was also intensively used all over the spatial treatment of data. The comparison of groundwaters NO₃^-- content (1985 and 1995), has shown that globally the nitrates content in the groundwater is low (< 30 mg/l for 90 % of samples). However it must be notice that the evolution of the NO₃^-- content degrades during time. The study of vulnerability to pollution for the aquifer situated between Sierre and Vétroz as shown significant differences between the four different methods used. As main results DRASTIC and SINTACS integrated methods are concentrated between Moderate and High vulnerability when NLFB and GOD intrinsic methods are concentrated between Very Low and Moderate vulnerability. Intrinsic methods have the tendency to minimize the vulnerability.