Terms Of Water Quality Index Research Articles

Chemical composition and assessment of water quality in benthic environment of an Indian reservoir through multivariate statistical approach

Seasonal water samples were collected from five different locations of Halali reservoir of India during the year of 2007–2008 to study the quality of this waste impacted water body of Madhya Pradesh. The range of physico-chemical parameters were 14.9–21.8°C for temperature, 7.57–9.32. for pH, 118–558 mg L–1 for TDS, 176–839 µS cm–1 for EC, 0–5.92 mg L–1 for free CO2, 4.11–6.78 mg L–1 for DO, 81–345 mg L–1 for alkalinity, 81–357 mg L–1 for hardness and 26.11–137 mg L–1 for chloride while the heavy metal content ranged between 0.001–0.0039 mg L–1, 0.0018–0.3259, 0.0011–0.0278, 0.0011–0.0299, 0.0079–0.0447 and 0.0109–0.1149 mg L–1, respectively for Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn. Most of the studied parameters were within the permitted level for different purposes as described by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). On the other hand some parameters i.e., TDS, Cr and Ni were higher than the permitted level for drinking water standard as stipulated by BIS/WHO. In terms of water quality index (WQI), the reservoir falls under excellent to fair category. Some sites of the reservoir are more polluted than others due to more wastes draining into the reservoir at these sites.