Abstract
Sabarmati is a major river in Gujarat which serves as the primary source of drinking and other domestic purposes. It also carries industrial and sewage discharges from nearby industries and areas of municipal corporations due to which it is prone to deterioration. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously monitor to restore and sustain the quality and the quantity of the river. The objective of this study was to assess the pollution levels in the river and assess the levels of various parameters with respect to drinking water standards. Here, a total of 10 physicochemical parameters were selected namely pH, turbidity, total dissolved solids, total alkalinity, total hardness, chloride, ammoniacal nitrogen, BOD, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity. These were analysed in samples collected from 11 stations along the course of the river Sabarmati in pre-monsoon and post-monsoon seasons from January 2015 to January 2016. Further, the water quality indices Weighted Arithmetic Water Quality Index (WAWQI) and Canadian Council of the Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCMEWQI) were selected to give an overall indication of pollution. Cohen’s d test was applied to test for any significant differences between the parameters in pre-and-post monsoon seasons. Water quality through WAWQI was found to be highly polluted and ‘unsuitable for drinking’. Using WAWQI, it was also found that, the water quality deteriorated further during post-monsoon season, while using CCMEWQI, it was found that the water quality ranged from ‘Fair to marginal’. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in all the parameters during pre-and post-monsoon season at different locations. From the above indices and analysis, it can be concluded that appropriate measures must be taken for the improvement of the quality of water in River Sabarmati.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Public Health Association (APHA) (2012) Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater, 27th edn. APHA, Washington, DC
Aziz HA (2004) Removal of Ammoniacal nitrogen (N-NH3) from municipal solid waste leachate by using activated carbon and limestone. Waste Manage Res. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X04047661
Bhadrecha MH, Khatri N, Tyagi S (2016) Rapid integrated water quality evaluation of Mahisagar river using benthic macroinvertebrates. Environ Monit Assess 188:254
Bora M, Goswami DC (2017) Water quality assessment in terms of water quality index (WQI): case study of the Kolong River, Assam, India. Appl Water Sci 7:3125–3135
CCMC (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment), (2001). CCME Water Quality Index 1.0 Technical Report and User’s Manual. Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines. Technical Subcommittee, Gatineau
Chang H (2005) Spatial and temporal variations of water quality in the Han River and its tributaries, Seoul, Korea, 1993–2002. Water Air Soil Pollut 161:267–284
Cohen J (1988) Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, New Jersey
Davies J-M (2006) Application and tests of the Canadian Water Quality Index for assessing changes in water quality in lakes and rivers of central North America. Lake Reserv Manage 22(4):308–320
De AK (2003) Environmental chemistry. New Age, New Delhi, India
Devi KM, Bharathi ME, Geethamani R, Abhinaya S (2017) Self-purification capacity of Bhavani River, India. Res J Eng Sci 6:1–9
Gupta N, Pandey P, Hussan J (2017) Effect of physicochemical and biological parameters on the quality of river water of Narmada, Madhya Pradesh, India. Water Sci 31:11–23
Haghiabi AH, Nasrolahi AH, Parsaie A (2018) Water quality prediction using machine learning methods. Water Qual Res J 53:3–13. https://doi.org/10.2166/wqrj.2018.025
Haldar S, Mandal SK, Thorat RB, Goel S, Baxi KD, Parmer NP, Patel V, Basha S, Mody KH (2014) Water pollution of Sabarmati River—a Harbinger to potential disaster. Environ Monit Assess 186:2231–2242
Horton RK (1965) An index number system for rating water quality. J Water Pollut Cont Fed 37:300–305
Kaushik R (2015) Mathematical modelling on water pollution and self-purification of river Ganges. J Peg Res Lib 6:57–64
Khatoon N, Husain Khan A, Rehman M, Pathak V (2013) Correlation study for the assessment of water quality and its parameters of Ganga river, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. IOSR-JAC 5:80–90
Khatri N, Tyagi S (2015) Influences of natural and anthropogenic factors on surface and groundwater quality in rural and urban areas. Front Life Sci 8:23–39
Khatri N, Tyagi S, Rawtani D (2016) Assessment of drinking water quality and its health effects in rural areas of Harij Taluka, Patan District of Northern Gujarat. Environ Claim J 28:223–246
Khatri N, Tyagi S, Rawtani D (2017a) Rural environment study for water from different sources in cluster of villages in Mehsana district of Gujarat. Environ Monit Assess 190:10
Khatri N, Tyagi S, Rawtani D (2017b) Recent strategies for the removal of iron from water: a review. J Water Process Eng 19:291–304
Khatri N, Raval K, Jha AK, Rawtani D (2020) Pollution indicators at stretches of the Mahisagar River in Gujarat India. Environ Claims J. https://doi.org/10.1080/10406026.2020.1750803
Li D, Liu S (2019) Detection of river water quality. In: Li D, Liu S (eds) Water quality monitoring and management, 1st edn. Elsevier, Massachusetts, pp 211–220
Manios T, Stentiford EI, Millner PA (2002) The removal of NH3-N from primary treated wastewater in subsurface reed beds using different substrates. J Environ Sci Health Part A 37:297–308
Milivojević J, Krstić D, Šmit B, Djekić V (2016) Assessment of heavy metal contamination and calculation of its pollution index for Uglješnica River, Serbia. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 97:737–742
Mohan SV, Nithila P, Reddy SJ (1996) Estimation of heavy metals in drinking water and development of heavy metal pollution index. J Environ Sci Health 31:283–289
Mondal I, Bandyopadhyay J, Kr Paul Ashis (2016) Water quality modeling for seasonal fluctuation of Ichamati River, West Bengal, India. Model Earth Syst Environ 2:113
Muthulakshmi L, Ramu A, Kannan N, Murugan A (2013) Application of correlation and regression analysis in assessing ground water quality. Int J Chem Tech Res 5:353–361
Parsaie A, Haghiabi AH (2015a) Predicting the longitudinal dispersion coefficient by radial basis function neural network. Model Earth Syst Environ 1:34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-015-0037-y
Parsaie A, Haghiabi AH (2015b) Computational modeling of pollution transmission in rivers. Appl Water Sci 7:1213–1222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-015-0319-6
Parsaie A, Haghiabi AH (2016) Numerical routing of tracer concentrations in rivers with stagnant zones. Water Supply 17:825–834. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2016.175
Parsaie A, Emamgholizadeh S, Azamathulla HM, Haghiabi AH (2018) ANFIS-based PCA to predict the longitudinal dispersion coefficient in rivers. IJHST 8:410. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJHST.2018.095537
Pimparkar M, Tyagi S, Khatri N, Rawtani D (2016) Development of criticality index to assess water quality in major rivers of Gujarat. Environ Claim J 28:320–345
Priyadarshi N (2009). Ganga river pollution in India—a brief report. https://nitishpriyadarshi.blogspot.com/2009/07/ganga-river-pollution-in-india-brief.html. Accessed 8 July 2016
Rawtani D, Khatri N, Tyagi S, Pandey G (2018) Nanotechnology-based recent approaches for sensing and remediation of pesticides. J Environ Manage 206:749–762
Sawyer CN, McCarthy PL, Parkin GF (1994) Chemistry for environmental engineering and science. McGraw Hill, New York
Shah KA, Joshi GS (2017) Evaluation of water quality index for river Sabarmati, Gujarat, India. Appl Wat Sci 7:1349–1358
Singh SK, Singh P, Gautam SK (2016) Appraisal of urban lake water quality through numerical index, multivariate statistics and earth observation data sets. Int J Environ Sci Technol 13:445–456
Tyagi S, Sharma B, Singh P, Dobha R (2013) Water quality assessment in terms of water quality. AJWR 1:34–38
Tyagi S, Rawtani D, Khatri N, Tharmavaram M (2018) Strategies for nitrate removal from aqueous environment using nanotechnology: a review. J Water Process Eng 21:84–95
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Khatri, N., Tyagi, S., Rawtani, D. et al. Assessment of river water quality through application of indices: a case study River Sabarmati, Gujarat, India. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 6, 101 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-020-00459-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-020-00459-8