Evaluation of spatio-seasonal changes of the quality of water through the lower stretch of River Ganga: MCDM tool based approach for water quality indexing

Abstract

Abstract Knowledge on water quality and its assessment is essential for environmental benefit and human health. The primary focus of the study was to evaluate the spatial and seasonal changes in water quality index (WQI) of Hugli River in West Bengal using Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tool. Despite of availability of different conventional methods for WQI calculation, present study adheres to the quality index with all sorts of water quality issues in an integrated way. For that MCDM tool such as Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) was adopted to determine weights of individual quality parameters and calculation of water quality indices. Nine locations along the stretch of the river were selected depending on population density, agricultural practices, industrial and other activities and ten water quality parameters were considered. According to the results water quality of the whole stretch of the river revealed poor quality of water for drinking and other uses without appropriate treatment though monsoon and autumn showed relatively better quality condition.