TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessment of the Present State and Future Fate of River Saraswati, India
T2 - Water Quality Indices and Forecast Models as Diagnostic and Management Tools
AU - Pramanik, Sasanka
AU - Biswas, Jayanta Kumar
AU - Kaviraj, Anilava
AU - Saha, Subrata
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the University of Kalyani for providing all infrastructural and analytical support for carrying out the research. Sincere acknowledgment is due to DST PURSE, the University of Kalyani, for providing some instrumental and analytical facilities for the present study. Acknowledgment is also due to the Principal, Sreegopal Banerjee College, Hooghly, for providing the necessary laboratory facilities to conduct the research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Clean – Soil, Air, Water published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
PY - 2023/4
Y1 - 2023/4
N2 - Water quality assessment is key to the conservation and management of rivers. River Saraswati, a distributary of the river Ganga, serves as a lifeline to many villages in the district Hooghly in West Bengal, India. As the river is gradually dying due to diverse man-made pollution, ten water quality parameters in two sampling spots (PR-1 and PR-2) in the river are monitored month-wise from March 2017 to February 2020, and these are compared with those from a reference pond. The water quality index (WQI) is determined for the two riverine spots and the reference pond based on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment WQI (CCMEWQI) and weighted arithmetic WQI, respectively. In addition to actual observations, three different forecasting methods, exponential smoothing, autoregressive integrated moving average, and artificial neural network, are used to predict WQI for the next two years. This study indicates that free CO2, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity are the key parameters to evaluate this river's anthropogenic stress and health. The actual and forecasted results reflect the precipitous degradation of CCMEWQI in PR-2. Therefore, the immediate intervention of all stakeholders is required to adopt an integrated and comprehensive river management plan to save the river from utter obliteration.
AB - Water quality assessment is key to the conservation and management of rivers. River Saraswati, a distributary of the river Ganga, serves as a lifeline to many villages in the district Hooghly in West Bengal, India. As the river is gradually dying due to diverse man-made pollution, ten water quality parameters in two sampling spots (PR-1 and PR-2) in the river are monitored month-wise from March 2017 to February 2020, and these are compared with those from a reference pond. The water quality index (WQI) is determined for the two riverine spots and the reference pond based on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment WQI (CCMEWQI) and weighted arithmetic WQI, respectively. In addition to actual observations, three different forecasting methods, exponential smoothing, autoregressive integrated moving average, and artificial neural network, are used to predict WQI for the next two years. This study indicates that free CO2, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity are the key parameters to evaluate this river's anthropogenic stress and health. The actual and forecasted results reflect the precipitous degradation of CCMEWQI in PR-2. Therefore, the immediate intervention of all stakeholders is required to adopt an integrated and comprehensive river management plan to save the river from utter obliteration.
KW - environmental degradation
KW - forecasting tools
KW - pollution load
KW - riverine health
KW - water quality index
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147376046&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/clen.202200321
DO - 10.1002/clen.202200321
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85147376046
SN - 1863-0650
VL - 51
JO - CLEAN - Soil, Air, Water
JF - CLEAN - Soil, Air, Water
IS - 4
M1 - 2200321
ER -