Affiliations: Centre of Environmental Studies, National Institute of
Industrial Engineering (NITIE) Vihar Lake, Powai, Mumbai – 400087,
India | Environmental Management Group, Central Institute of
Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) Barwa-Road, Dhanbad, Jharkhand – 826015,
India
Abstract: The objective of the study is to evaluate and compare the water
quality of river Damodar for drinking purposes using Water Quality Index (WQI)
and Sensitivity Index (SI) respectively. WQI gives information about spatial
and seasonal variations of pollution load and to classify river water into five
classes: Excellent, Acceptable, Slightly polluted, Polluted and Heavily
polluted for drinking purposes. However, SI gives an idea about whether quality
of water is increasing or decreasing at same point during subsequent
monitoring. Both were estimated using two separate computer programs; written
in Clanguage based on the eleven water quality parameters such as pH, DO, BOD5,
TDS, TSS, Cl^-, NO_3^ -- N,
SO_4^{2-}, THARD, T-alkalinity, and T-coliform. A total 76
water samples were collected from 19 sampling points of a stretch D/S Tenughat
dam to D/S Barakar river in mid-upper Damodar Valley to estimate spatial and
seasonal variations in water quality for the year 2010. The values of WQI were
found in the range of 66.2-75.6 in summer, while it was 55-76.0 in winter,
affected mainly due to high values of total coliform, TSS and pH, exceeded the
tolerable limits of IS:10:500 (1993) at almost all the sampling points. The
results indicate that all sampling points were falling in the Acceptable (C2)
to Slightly polluted (C3) range, except at Garga Nalla [Polluted (C4)
category]. This study demonstrates the application of WQI using computer
programming tool for quick assessment of water quality of any water body and
also can be used for effective water quality management.
Keywords: Damodar river, water quality index, sensitivity index, water quality management
