Assessment of Water Quality Index of the Brahmaputra River of Guwahati City of Kamrup District of Assam, India

Abstract

Water quality index (WQI) provides a single number that expresses overall water quality at a certain location and time based on several water quality parameters. The objective of a WQI is to turn complex water quality data into information that is understandable and useable by the public. This study was conducted to measure the water quality parameters of the Brahmaputra river in Guwahati city of Kamrup district of the state Assam, India to determine the WQI of the river Brahmaputra. Water quality focuses on various aspects of the physico-chemical parameters by which the quality of the water body can easily be elucidated. Five different locations were selected within the study area. Water samples were collected in March 2017 from these five locations along the river and analyzed for these physico-chemical parameters: Hydrogen ion concentration (pH), Dissolve Oxygen (DO), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Ammoniacal Nitrate (AN) and Suspended Solids (SS). The values of these parameters were used to calculate the WQI based on the equation derived by the Department of Environment (DoE) Malaysia. The WQI was found to be 61.71, which falls in the class IV category.