NULLGroundwater is considered an important water
source for agricultural, drinking and domestic uses in many
regions of the world including Libya, especially in its
coastal area. This study aims to assess the quality of
groundwater in north-western area of Libya for drinking
and agricultural through examining its physico-chemical
characteristics such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC),
total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness, cations and
anions. These parameters are used to assess the suitability
of groundwater for domestic purposes by comparing their
current values with the maximum permissible limits of
these parameters that are recommended by World Health
Organization (WHO). The EC, sodium adsorption ratio,
soluble sodium percentage, Kelly’s ratio and magnesium
adsorption ratio of the groundwater are also used to evaluate
its suitability for irrigation. Gibbs diagram shows the
evaporation–crystallization dominance in controlling the
quality of groundwater. The main hydrochemical facies is
Ca–Mg–SO4–Cl type of water in both methods of Piper and
Chadha’s diagram. The results revealed that most
groundwater samples were not suitable for drinking and
household uses due to their high levels of most cations and
anions, total hardness, EC and TDS. Most of the collected
water samples showed the investigated parameter levels
exceeded the permissible limits of WHO. Therefore, most
of the groundwater samples are considered unsuitable for
irrigation due to its high salt content, unless certain measures
for salinity control are undertaken.