Assessment Of Water Quality For The Gosikhurd Reservoir And Delineation Of Mitigation Measures For Minimization Of Pollution

Abstract

Major sources of water in nature are reservoirs, ponds, lakes and rivers. The quality of water in these sources keeps continuously changing due to the process of eutrophication and becomes a problem for sustenance of the water body. The study was conducted to know the water quality of Gosikhurd reservoir and contributing rivers to undertake requisite measures to protect quality of the water. The temperature of river water varied between 25.8⁰C and 26.5⁰C whereas for reservoir it was ranged from 26⁰C to 26.8⁰C.  Dissolved oxygen (DO) content in the river and reservoir water ranged between 4.8-7.8 mg/L and 5.0-7.0 mg/L respectively. Impoundment of the river water does not have measurable adverse impact on DO, which seems to be adequate for fishing and other aquaculture activities. Turbidity of the river and reservoir water varies between 4.6-17.0 mg/L during non-monsoon season whereas during monsoon season it ranges between 230-260 mg/L and 65-190 mg/L for the river and reservoir respectively. The TDS of river and reservoir water ranges between 84 mg/L and 269 mg/L and 108 mg/L and 224 mg/L respectively. DO, BOD, COD, heavy metals, etc. were within permissible limits, and fall in ‘C‘&‘D’ classes, specified by CPCB. Comparable plankton diversities were observed in the water from reservoir as well as river. Palmer’s Pollution Index (PPI) for phytoplankton varied from 3 to 5 whereas Shannon Wiener Diversity Index (SWI) for zooplankton ranged between from 2 and 2.86, which indicates low to moderate productivity of waters.