{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02576112412177986, 'fraction_numerical': 0.019320843091334895, 'mean_word_length': 4.913494809688581, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Discussion on ‘Electrical conductivity and saline concentrations in arid land groundwaters’ by J. C. Doornkamp & H. A. M. Ibrahim

N. R. G. Walton writes: Doornkamp & Ibrahim's brief article, suggesting the use of simple electrical conductivity measurements instead of the more difficult and time-consuming chemical analyses for major troublesome anions such as chloride and sulphate, appears of interest to those in the engineering profession who would prefer a simple ‘EC-fix‘ type solution to salinity problems in both construction and irrigation engineering. However, the article lacks fundamental credibility to groundwater scientists both in its presentation of obviously erroneous data and in its simplicity of approach to groundwater chemistry—a subject which the authors appear to discover for the first time when posing the key question for future research: ‘which environmental parameters control the specific relationships between electrical conductivity and the ionic concentrations of selected salts?’ Firstly, the axes of the graphs shown in Fig. 1 are obviously incorrectly labelled, since although middle-eastern groundwater is salty, it is not so salty as to be found on graphs from 0 to 200 000 micromhos/cm in stepsof 40 000! Dividing these figures by l00 would make them suitable for UK groundwaters, but middle-east ground water would fit better by dividing only by 10, giving an EC scale of 0 to 20 000 micromhos/cm. The difficulty now comes in trying to sort out what has gone wrong with the anion axes, since these are also both patently absurd. Dividing the sulphate axis by 10 appears to give reasonable results, so that a Bahrain groundwater with EC = 10 000 would give SO4 = 12 m