Time series forecasting of temperature and turbidity due to global warming in river Ganga at and around Varanasi, India.

Abstract

The fluctuation in the river ecosystem network due to climate change-induced global warming affects aquatic organisms, water quality, and other ecological processes. Assessment of climate change-induced global warming impacts on regional hydrological processes is vital for effective water resource management and planning. The global warming effect on river water quality has been analyzed in this work. The river Ganga stretch near the Varanasi region has been chosen as the study area for this analysis. The air temperature has been predicted using the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) and the Prophet model. The Prophet model has shown better accuracy with a root mean square percent error (RMSPE) value of 3.2% compared to the SARIMA model, which has an RMPSE value of 7.54%. The river temperature, turbidity, and nighttime radiance values have been predicted for the years 2022 and 2025 using the long short-term memory (LSTM) algorithm. The anthropogenic effect on the river has been evaluated by using the nighttime radiance imageries. The predicted average river temperature shows an increment of 0.58°C and 0.63°C for the city and non-city river stretches, respectively, in 2025 compared to 2022. Similarly, the river turbidity shows an increment of 1.21 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) and 1.17 NTU for the city and non-city stretch, respectively, in 2025 compared to 2022. For future predicted years, the nighttime radiance values for the region situated near the city river stretch show a significant rise compared to the region that lies nearby the non-city river stretch.