Water Pollution in Damodar River Basin—A Statistical Analysis

Abstract

The Damodar river, one of the potential freshwater resources of the state of West Bengal, India is now treated as the contaminated river of the country. The riverbank enriched with varied mineral resources becomes the hub of different industries as, for example, coal-oriented plants for coal washing & coke processing purpose; cement, zinc, steel industries and thermal power plants. Consequently, contamination takes place because of excessive digging process; production of oil, coal dust, fly ash, poisonous metals from the industries and is slowly choking millions of people to a serious health hazard. Several researchers reported drastic water pollution of the Damodar river, however, proper analysis about the root cause of the water pollution and to find out the water quality indices have not been done earlier. Therefore, it is highly essential to find a powerful monitoring tool for sustainable development of the river water under a changed climate. With this regard, analysing the root cause of water pollution is the primary task which has not been done earlier in detail. In this paper the authors have studied the changing patterns of the physical (i.e. temperature, pH, conductivity); chemical (i.e. DO, BOD and nitrate-N + nitrite-N) and biological parameters (i.e. fecal coliform and total coliform) of surface water at six different locations of the Damodar river basin and these have been analysed using statistical tools. Quality Index (QI) also has been calculated and the water has been categorized for their utility. In this study the researchers analysed the descriptive statistics for each location and changing pattern for different physico-chemical parameters in fourteen years duration from 2003 to 2016. They also categorized suitability of the water for each location by calculating Quality Index (QI). The electrical conductivity observed significantly high for station code 1335 fluctuating in between 3371 µmhos/cm and 14,042 µmhos/cm where the threshold limit is 2250 µmhos/cm. Water Quality Index (WQI) ranging from 24448.52 to 45726.38 is much higher for drinking purpose and even for bathing purpose. The new findings from this study may help the public health department, policymakers, industrialists, farmers and associated government agencies.