Chemico-physical pollution in urban areas of groundwater flowing in a littoral carbonate aquifer

Human activity has a direct impact on the quality of underground water flowing in those part of the aquifer that develop below urbanized areas. This work refers particularly to the city of Bari, with a typical example of a coastal carbonate aquifer characterized by the presence of "deep groundwater". At present, groundwater is also drawn heavily upon for air conditioning, either for domestic or for industrial use, with or whitout returning the water into the aquifer. Twelve zones were defined to monitor, using a multiparameter probe, salt content, temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen. Salinity ranges from 0.1 g/l to 38.5 g/l. The range of temperatures was found to be very large, between 15.5 and 34.8 °C.