Assessment of Soil Contamination Using GIS

In India, near Chennai, Pammal Panchayat of Tambaram Taluk, there are more than 145 tannery industries functioning since 1945, covering six square kilometre area. To assess the level of chemical contamination of the study area, 3D model Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) has been generated using GIS software such as Arc Sene, Arc Map. Using the cross validation technique from the software analysis it is observed that among the four interpolation techniques, Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) is the best tool for creating continuous surface for all the chemical characters except for pH and Organic Matter (OM). By overlay analysis, contamination index maps have been generated for three different depths by assigning ranking and weightage (consistency index) for the various chemical parameters. The GIS model provides a better understanding of contaminants spread and the identified interpolation techniques gives closer values to the real existence as in the field. Hence this approach of analysing soil contamination provides a permanent base for monitoring contaminated sites. Indian Geotechnical Conference – 2010, GEOtrendz December 16–18, 2010 IGS Mumbai Chapter & IIT Bombay