J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 32, No. 1-2, January-April,
2012 33 INTRODUCTION Pollution of river bodies has become a major
and global problem that is becoming critical
indevelopingnationsoftheworldbecause
ofinadequacyornonexistenceofsurface
waterqualityprotectionmeasuresand
sanitation.Lagoons,riversandstreamsare
sinksforwastes.Wastesaremostoften
dischargedintoreceivingwaterbodieswith
littleornoregardtotheirassimilative
capacities.Thisineffectmakespollutionof
riverbodiesaglobalissuethathasno respectfornationalorinternational
boundaries.Thedegreesofpollutionand
naturalpurificationaremeasurable
physically,biologicallyandchemically (LongeandOmole2008).Hencea
comprehensiveriverwaterquality monitoringprogrammeisbecominga
necessity in order to safeguard public health
andtoprotectthevaluablefreshwater
resources.Whereaswatermonitoringfor
differentpurposesiswelldefined,the
overallwaterqualityissometimesdifficult
toevaluatefromalargenumberofsamples
andparameters(Chapman1992).Analysis
ofanymonitoredparameter,eitherinalone
orgroupaccordingtoacommonfeature,
providespartialinformationontheoverall
waterquality(pesceandWunderlin2000).
Traditionalapproachesforassessingwater
qualityarebasedonthecomparisonof experimentally determined
parameter values withtheexistinglocalnormative.However,
itdoesnotprovideaglobalvisiononthe
spatialandtemporaltrendsintheoverall waterquality(Debelsetal.2005).
Mathematical computation modeling of river
waterqualityispossiblebutrequiresan
extensivevalidation.Besidesitrequires
previousknowledgeofhydraulicsand hydrodynamics.Toovercomethese
difficulties, a water quality index (WQI) was
developedwhichisanumericexpression
transforminglargequantitiesofwater
characterizationdataintoasinglenumber,
representingwaterqualitylevel(Sanchezet al 2006; Bordalo et al.
2006). The WQI is a dimensionlessnumberwithvaluesranging
JournalofIndianWaterResourcesSociety,
Vol32,No.12,JanuaryApril,2012ASSESSMENTOFWATERQUALITY
STATUSOFHOLYRIVERKSHIPRAUSINGWATERQUALITYINDEX R.C. Gupta1, Ajay K.
Gupta2 and R.K. Shrivastava3 ABSTRACT In this paper attempt is
being made to assess the water quality of Kshipra, a holy river
flowing
throughUjjaincity.ParametersnamelyTemperature,pH,Turbidity,TotalSolids,Dissolved
Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Phosphate, Ammonia
and Fecal Coliform( F.C.) were determined at important locationsof
River Khan and Kshipra for summer, monsoon and winter seasons in
the year 2010. Assessment was made through Water Quality Index
(WQI),
asinglenumberrepresentinglargequantitiesofdata.USNationalSanitationFoundationWQI
was calculated for each set of data with and without Phosphate
parameter. The results shows that
KshipraRiverwaterisofmediumtobadqualityandKhanRiverwateristhemajorcauseof
pollutionin
KshipraRiver.ThestudyalsorevealedthatKshipraRiverwaterisunsuitable
even for bathing. Key words: Water Quality Parameter, Khan River,
Kshipra River, Water Quality Intex. 1. Selection Grade Lecturer,
Civil Engineering, Govt. Polytechnic College, Ujjain
(M.P.)Email:[email protected] 2. Associate Professor, Civil
Engineering,Govt. Engineering College, Ujjain (M.P.) 3. Professor,
Civil Engg., S.G.S. Institute of Technology and Science, Indore
(M.P.) Manuscript No.: 1309 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 32,
No. 1-2, January-April, 2012 34 between0and100.Ahigherindexvalue
represents a good water quality (Cude, 2001;
PandeyandSundaram,2002).This numericalindexcanbeusedasa
managementtoolinwaterquality assessment.WQIalsopermitsthe
assessmentofchangesinwaterqualityand
toidentifywaterqualitytrends(Chapman
1992).BasedontheresultsofWQI,river
watercanbeclassifiedforthepurposeof various uses.
TheKshipraRiverhasbeenconsideredas casestudybecauseitisaholyriverof
MalwaregionofMadhyaPradeshand thousands of pilgrims take a holy dip
all the year round. The objective of this study is to establish the
water quality status of the river for all seasons of a year. The
results reported herewillprovidebase-linedataforframing suitable
remedial action plan. STUDY AREA
RiverKshipraisoneofthesacredriversof
India.ItoriginatesfromKokriBardihills
(747metreshigh)about11km.eastof Indore. After travelling a distance
of 70 km. throughIndoredistrict,itentersUjjain
district.ItreceivesitstributaryriverKhan
justupstreamofUjjainandriverGambhir nearMehidpurd/sof Ujjain before
merging with river Chambal. Total length of the river
isabout195kms(Tyagietal.2003).The
riverisnotperennialandflowsonlyduring
monsoons.Duringthecourseoftheriver from the origin to just before
the Ujjain city i.e.uptoadistanceofabout70Kms.,some small villages
are situated along the bank of theriverandtherearenormaladditions
and abstractions of water. The real problem with
theriverstartsassoonasitentersthe
territoryofUjjaincityhavingapopulation
overfivelacs.There,RiverKhancoming
fromIndorecitymergeswithitatTriveni
Sangam.RiverKhanisthebiggestsource
ofcontaminationtoRiverKshipracarrying
highorganiccontent,chemicalsandheavy metals.Anothermajorsourceof
contaminationisthedomesticwastewater
generatedfromUjjaincity.Abouthalfof 110MLDofwastewatergeneratedis
dischargeddirectlyintotheriver.Thus
about20Kmstretchoftheriverishighly
pollutedandevenunsuitableforbathing.ManyoftheimportantghatslikeTriveni
ghat,RamghatandSiddhvatghatare situatedinthisstretchwherehundredsof
pilgrimstakeaholydipdaily.During Simhasthafairwhichisorganizedevery
twelveyears,abouttwocroresofpilgrims visit Ujjain in a months time
to take a holy dip in the river.Thus about 20 km stretch of the
river in the vicinity of the Ujjain city has
beenchosenunderstudybecauseofits religiousimportance.Fig.1showsthe
locationofimportantghatsandsampling points on the course of the
river. Sampling Points Sampling points have been decided in such a
waysoastocoverallimportantpointsand ghats so that results obtained
will depict the truestatusoftheriverandimpactof
tributariesonit.Fig.1showsthedetailsof the sampling stations.
Sampling Station Description 1At Khan River (before the confluence
with Kshipra River) 2At Kshipra River (before the confluence with
Khan River) 3At Triveni Sangam (confluence of Khan River and
Kshipra River) 4At Gaughat 5At Ramghat 6At Siddhwat Ghat
Fig1:LocationofImportantGhatsand Sampling Stations J. Indian Water
Resour. Soc., Vol. 32, No. 1-2, January-April, 2012 35 Station 1
and 2 will depict the true status of
KhanRiverandKshipraRiverrespectively before confluence while
station 3 will depict theinfluenceofKhanRiveronKshipra River.
Station 3, 4, 5 and 6 are the important
bathingghatsonriverKshipra.Samples were collected for three seasons
i.e. summer, monsoonandwinterintheyear2010to
assessthevariationofcharacteristicsover
thefullyear.Sampleswerecollectedand
examinedstrictlyinaccordancewiththe
StandardMethodsfortheExaminationof Water and Wastewater (APHA
1998). Water Quality Index Therearevariouswaterqualityindicesto
comparevariousphysicochemicaland biologicalparameterssuchasBhargava
method,Hortonsmethod,Delphimethod
etc.(PandeyandSundaram2002;Chetana andSomshekhar1997;RamandAnandh
1996).Howevermostoftheseindicesare basedonthefirstwaterqualityindex
developedbyBrown,etal.(1970)which waslatersupportedbytheUSNational
SanitationFoundation(NSF).Forthis reasonBrownsindexisalsoreferredas
NSFWQI.Thisindexissimilarinstructure
toHortonsindexbutwithmuchgreater vigour in selecting parameters,
developing a commonscaleandassigningweightsfor
whichelaborateDelphicexercisewere
performed.Thisisamultiplicativeformof
indexandhasbeenwidelyfieldtestedand appliedtodatafromanumberof
geographicalareasallovertheworldto
calculateWQIofvariouswaterbodiesfor
whichcriticalpollutionparameterswere considered.NSFWQIisanexcellent
management and general administrative tool in communicating water
quality information (Samantrayetal.2009).Themathematical expression
for NSF WQI is given by: p NSF WQI = Wi Ii i=1 Where
Iiisthesubindexforithwaterquality parameter,
Wiistheweight(intermsofimportance) associated with ith water
quality parameter p is the number of water quality
parameters.TheNSFWaterQualityLegendisgivenin
Table1.Table2showstheparameters consideredforcalculatingWQIandthere
relativeweights.Whentestresultsfrom fewer than nine measurements
are available, relativeweightsforeachparameteris
preservedandscaledthetotalsothatthe range remains 0-100. RESULTS
PhysicalparametersnamelyTemp., TurbidityandTotalSolids,chemical
parametersnamelypH,DO,BOD, Phosphate,Ammoniaandbiological parameter
namely Fecal Coliform have been analyzedatlocationsshowninFig1.
Parameterswereselectedforassessingthe
bathingwaterqualitystatusatimportant ghats of the river. Seven
parameters namely pH,Turbidity,T.S.,DO,BOD,Phosphate and F.C. has
been considered for calculating WQI.Table3showsthewaterqualitydata
at each station during summer (S), monsoon
(M)andwinter(W)seasons.FurtherNSF
WQIwascalculatedforeachstationwith
andwithoutPhosphateparameter.Thiswas doneinordertoassesstheimpactof
phosphate on overall water quality. Presence
ofPhosphateindicatestheuseoffertilizers
incatchmentareaoftheriver.Table4 summarizes the WQI. J. Indian
Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 32, No. 1-2, January-April, 2012 36 Table
1: NSFWaterQualityLegend Range0-2525-5050-7070-9090-100 QualityVery
BadBadMediumGoodExcellent Table 2:Water Quality Parameters and
Weigths ParameterD.O.F.C.pHB.O.D.Temp. change Total Phosphate
NitratesTurb idity T.S. Weight0.170.160.110.110.100.100.100.080.07
Table 3:Water Quality Data at Sampling Stations Location
SeasonTemp. (0C) pHTurbidity (NTU) T. S. (Mg/l) DO (Mg/l) BOD
(Mg/l) Phosphate (Mg/l) Ammonia (Mg/l) F. C. (MPN/ 100ML) 1 S M W
34 26 26 8.2 7.5 7.5 56 210 48 1200 1500 1050 4.3 7.8 6.1 36 28 18
5.9 4.5 5.1 7.2 8.2 6.2 2000 650 2550 2 S M W 34 26 25 7.5 7.3 8.0
16 500 32 650 1150 800 6.0 6.8 7.3 7.0 4.2 8.0 0.85 1.1 1.2 3.2 3.6
2.8 940 310 1400 3 S M W 35 27 26 8.3 7.4 8.4 26 600 40 950 1200
950 5.2 5.8 6.2 12.0 6.8 13.6 1.2 1.6 2.1 5.8 4.6 3.4 1200 460 2500
4 S M W 35 26 26 8.4 7.6 8.3 23 650 45 1070 1320 950 4.8 6.0 6.4
13.2 6.7 15.1 1.6 1.9 2.1 5.8 6.6 5.9 1750 470 2480 5 S M W 34 27
27 8.57.6 8.5 26 650 46 1150 1400 900 4.8 6.2 7.3 14 6.2 15.6 2.1
1.8 2.2 5.6 7.2 5.7 2000 500 2440 6 S M W 34 27 26 8.5 8.2 8.5 28
600 50 1150 1450 2480 3.9 6.3 7.0 15.0 7.2 15.8 1.9 2.0 2.2 6.2 6.8
6.1 2000 500 2480 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 32, No. 1-2,
January-April, 2012 37 Table 4: Water Quality Indices with and
without Phosphate Parameter StationSeasonWQI With PhosphateWithout
Phosphate 1 S M W 32 44 42 36 48 47 2 S M W 56 54 52 58 56 55 3 S M
W 45 48 43 47 50 45 4 S M W 41 47 44 43 50 46 5 S M W 40 49 44 42
52 47 6 S M W 36 46 43 37 49 46 Thewaterqualityindexdataareplotted
stationwiseandseasonwise.Fig.2&3
showsthevariationofWQIateachstation
withrespecttoseasons.Fig.4&5shows
thevariationofWQIforeachseasonwith
respecttostations2,3,4,5&6pertaining
toRiverKshipra.Followingobservations are made looking to these data
and charts: Fig 2: Variation of WQI at each station w.r.t. season
(With Phosphate) Fig 3: Variation of WQI at each station w.r.t.
season (Without Phosphate) Fig 4: Variation of WQI for each season
w.r.t. stations (With Phosphate) J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol.
32, No. 1-2, January-April, 2012 38 Fig 5: Variation of WQI for
each season w.r.t. stations (Without Phosphate)
DISCUSSION1)AsperNSFwaterqualitylegend(Table 1), Khan River water
is of bad quality and theKshipraRiverwaterisofmediumto bad quality.
2)Acloselookatthewaterqualitydataof KshipraRiveratallghatsindicates
that exceptpH&DOotherparameterslike BOD & F. C. do not
satisfy the class B waterqualitystandardsasprescribedby CPCB (pH =
6-8.5, DO > 5 mg/l, BOD < 3mg/l&MPN/100ml
