Water quality assessment using NSFWQI, OIP and multivariate techniques of Ganga River system, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract Ganga River water is very much stressed with the rapidly increasing population, climate change and water pollution that increase domestic, agricultural and industrial needs. This study assesses the surface water quality of the River Ganga in India, using NSFWQI, OIP and multivariate techniques. During the current study, water samples from Ganga River were collected for the assessment of 19 physico-chemical determinants from 20 sampling locations. Water quality indices (WQIs) is used to classify the overall impact of different variables of water. Multivariate techniques were utilized to assess the water conditions for productive management of fresh water quality. The WQI results showed that surface water quality varied at the selected sampling sites among medium and good categories. The PCA generates the 6 principle components which highly contributes (80.3%) in influencing the hydro-chemistry of river water. Agricultural waste runoff, untreated effluents and many other anthropogenic activities were identified as main contributor in decreasing the water quality of the River Ganga. To maintain and protect this fresh water resources against contamination, the usage of stringent policies and rules are expected to preserve fresh water resources for people in the future.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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