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Rapid global changes (industrialization, climate change, population growth, land use land cover changes etc.) putting an enormous pressure on different natural resources particularly fresh water resource which is already finite. Diligent monitoring for deciphering hydrological and hydrogeochemical process is key to manage this. This monitoring become even more important is water scarce regions areas like in mining area. Considering its importance, this study strives for detailed hydrogeochemical characterizations of groundwater were carried out in arsenic-affected Ambagarh Chowki areas of Rajnandgaon district, Chhattisgarh, India. The main objective of the study is to characterize the hydrogeochemical processes and groundwater quality assessment for its use in domestic and irrigation purposes. The area comes under a sub-tropical climate and consists of granites, rhyolite, basic volcanic rocks, and tuffite. Thirty groundwater samples were taken into consideration to monitor the physico-chemical parameters. The result indicates that the groundwater in the study area is fresh and few samples are alkaline. The abundance of the ions are Ca > Na > Mg > K for cations and HCO3 > Cl > SO4 for anions. Two major dominant hydrochemical facies (Ca-HCO3 and Ca-Cl-HCO3) were identified. Chemical indexes like percentage of sodium (%Na), and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) were calculated. In the US Salinity diagram, all the samples fell under the C1S1, C2S1, and C3S1 classes of irrigation quality. Due to low EC and no sodium hazard, groundwater in the study region is safe for irrigation use. Further, it has been observed that high arsenic is associated with low EC, and low bicarbonates compared to high sulphate ions in a few samples which belong to arsenic affected areas. Assessment of water samples from various methods suggested that groundwater in the study area is chemically suitable for domestic and irrigation use except in some of the arsenic affected areas.
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