Investigation of water quality of Damanganga estuary using water quality index, south Gujarat, India.

Abstract

The seasonal investigation of water quality ofDamanganga estuary from two riverine points (downstream and upstream)was carried out from January to December 2019 duringthreeconsecutiveseasons: winter, summer,and monsoon. During this monitoring period, intotal 29parameters (24physico-chemical parameters and 5 parameters formetalsmonitoring) were analyzed.Multivariate analyses exhibited inter-dependencyamong thestudied parameters. Based on the major fluctuated and affected parameters, the Water Quality Index (WQI) is computed. The WQI forall three seasons ranged from122.84 to 173.82,which suggested poor water quality of the water body. WQI suggests that the estuarine water quality is deteriorated due to high value of presence ofheavy metals (Aluminum, Iron, Manganese, Boron and Zinc), along with accentuated contents of Chloride(900.11 ± 103.90 to 1840.91 ± 570.30), Ammonium (5.99 ± 0.056to 8.63 ± 0.29)and Sulfate (151.51 ± 45.64 to 357.11 ± 25.50) in riverine water.The downstreamis having morepollutants compared to the upstream. Temporally, the dominant susceptibility was found during the winterseason followed by summer and monsoon. This study exhibited poor quality of water; the reason behind this might be the expanding industrial zone and uncontrolled anthropogenic activities.The Bray-Curtis cluster analysis showspercentage similarity level amongthe water quality parameters.