Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDIES OF PHYSICOCHEMICAL WATER PARAMETERS TO ASSESS THE WATER QUALITY OF GANGAN RIVER IN MORADABAD (UTTAR PRADESH), INDIA BY USING WATER QUALITY INDEX

Animesh Agarwal, Nitin Kumar Agrawal and Harendra Kumar

Abstract

Gangan river water were collected at six different sites and analysed for three seasons’ winter, summer and rainy seasons. Gangan river water found to be highly contaminated with reference to water parameters at all the sites in every season. The present study shows that the river found to be alkaline at every site as the value of both pH and alkalinity is very high as compared to WHO standards. The range of turbidity at all the sites found to be approximately 40-50 NTU and is very high as compared with WHO standards. High value of turbidity indicates that the percentage of organic matter and other chemicals is very high in river water and it is unfit for the agricultural and other purposes. It is also found by the study that B.O.D. and C.O.D. values are very high and D.O. value is low and this clearly shows that water is highly contaminated. The fluctuated values of physico chemical water parameters are only due to various activities like cattle bathing, mixing of discharge from small scale industries and other mankind activities noticed at these sites. The water quality index was found to be 454.5 which is very high as compared to permissible limit, shows river water cannot be used for domestic or agriculture purposes.