Assessment of river water quality and ecological diversity through multivariate statistical techniques, and earth observation dataset of rivers Ghaghara and Gandak, India

Abstract

ABSTRACTWater quality and ecological diversity of aquatic flora with respect to distribution in active channels and on banks of the rivers Ghaghara and Gandak have been investigated in years 2011–2012. The land use/land cover map of year 2010 showed agricultural land as the dominant class in both river basins. The appraisal of aquatic flora has indicated that the dominant plant species in numbers are as follows: macrophytic algae, aquatic angiosperms, aquatic pteridophytes, sedges, grasses, herbs, shrubs, climbers and trees collected from the banks and active channels of rivers Ghaghara and Gandak. In total, 207 plants species were reported as common in both river environments, and the remaining species have showed variability for both rivers. It was observed that the algal group showed higher species diversity in comparison to other plant groups. High numbers of macrophytic species were observed due to the alkaline pH and good level of dissolved oxygen at different sampling sites of the two rivers. Further, multivariate statistical techniques such as cluster analysis and principal component/factor analysis were applied to fulfil the knowledge gap and to identify the potential sources and types of pollutants.