Chemical Quality of Irrigation Waters in Ford County and the Great Bend Prairie of Kansas

Abstract

In order to develop data on the quality of groundwater, one hundred-seventy pumping irrigation wells and two flowing artesian wells were sampled in Ford County and the Great Bend Prairie area of central Kansas during July, 1977. Fourteen of the wells are located north of the Arkansas River in Edwards, Pawnee, Barton, Rice and Reno counties. Waters vary from a calcium-bicarbonate type in the western half of the study area to regions of sodium-chloride type waters in eastern Stafford and northern Reno counties. Waters along the Arkansas River valley tend to be of a sulfate type.