Drinking water in rural areas mainly comes from the local untreated groundwater in northwest Lantian County,Shanaxi Province.The objective of this preliminary research was to investigate the spatiotemporal variation and distribution of nitrate content in drinking well water using geostatistical analysis method on the basis of nitrate content measurements.The results indicate that on the nitrate contents of groundwater varied substantially over different areas and different times and exhibited clear trend effect. Furthermore,the nitrate contents in the water decreased with the well depth.Serious nitrate contamination was found in the water collected from 0—40mdeep well,particularly in the water collected from wells of 0— 20mdepth.The spatial analysis results show that the wells with higher nitrate concentration mainly distributed in the upstream of the river valley and a portion of highlands in the south.