water pollution

river water

water quality parameters

Environmental and Sustainability Indicators

Rivers are the source of freshwater for any urban community and hence, monitoring of river water is an obligatory yet challenging task. This study was conducted in a subtropical urban river in India with the view of developing a quantitative approach to assess its water quality (WQ) status. For the purposes of this study, water samples were collected from five locations across the Mahananda River main streams encompassing both urbanised and non-urbanised parts of the Siliguri city during April to June of 2021 and collected samples were analysed for fourteen common WQ indicators: pH, Temperature, Conductivity, TDS, Turbidity, Total Hardness (TH), DO, BOD, COD, NO 3 − , PO 4 3− , Cl − , Fecal Coliform (FC) and E. coli for assessing water quality. In order to obtain WQ status, the present study utilised the modified national sanitation foundation (NSF) water quality index (WQI) model, whereas the crucial WQ indicators were identified using the principal components analysis (PCA) technique. All WQ indicators were considered to compute the NSF-WQI except water pH and TH. Most WQ indicators were breached the guideline values of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Indian Standards (IS) for surface water. The modified NSF-WQI results revealed that the Mahananda River water quality was “good” to “medium” quality and the water is only suitable for limited purposes under certain conditions. The findings of this study provided evidence that the river WQ is heavily influenced by urban pressures because relatively “good” WQ was found at the sampling location of the outer part of the urban area. The results of this research could be effective in improving the Mahananda River's water quality and maintaining its complex ecosystem in order to ensure sustainable urban growth.

Assessment of urban river water quality using modified NSF water quality index model at Siliguri city, West Bengal, India