Paper Title
Groundwater Quality Mapping Using Water Quality Index in the Kabul City, Afghanistan

Abstract
The objectives of this study are to map groundwater quality in the Kabul city, Afghanistan according to water quality index (WQI). Thirteen Chemical-physical parameters such as, total hardness (TH), hydrogen ion concentration (pH), total dissolved solids (TDS), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), potassium (K), fluoride (F), iron (Fe), electric conductivity (EC), sulfate (SO4), manganese (Mn) and nitrate (NO3) collected from 52 different locations (wells) in September of 2017. This study shows WQI ranges from 36.21 to 716.29 in the research area. Interpolation of WQI by inverse distance weighting(IDW) method showed, only 0.2% of groundwater in the research area has excellent quality, 19.69% good quality, 62.21% poor quality, 13.65% very poor quality and 4.25% unsuitable for drinking. To verify the map a comparison between WQI which calculated based on assigned weights and normalized weights has been done. In addition, to determine the water quality parameter with the greatest influence on WQI results, the effective weights of each water quality parameter were calculated. Therefore, some degree of treatment is needed before using of groundwater in some area of Kabul city, to protect that area from contamination. Keywords— WQI, Groundwater, Quality, Kabul, Afghanistan