ANALYSIS OF WATER QUALITY DATA OF THE HINDON RIVER

Abstract

Formerly known as Harnandi, the Hindon River in the near past, breathed life and prosperity amongst the rural population of Western Uttar Pradesh and made it a centre for agrarian fertility. Today however, the Hindon has become a trunk sewer of the urban towns, carrying a heavy load of toxins from paper mills, sugar mills, distilleries, slaughter houses, dyeing and chemical industries and from pesticides in agricultural runoffs. The Hindon River is heavily utilized as a water resource for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, while untreated groundwater is the primary source of drinking water. Findings of a study conducted by Janhit foundation showed that Organochlorine and Organophosphorus pesticides are entering water resources to toxic levels as a result of over-application of agricultural chemicals. Heavy metals are shown to be present as a direct result of discharge of large volumes of untreated industrial effluents. The Janhit Foundation has also found that the expected aquatic biodiversity of the I lindon River is entirely absent at almost all locations within the catchment due to a high loading of organic pollutants reducing oxygen levels and causing anoxic conditions in the river. In order to restore the Designated Best Use standards of this critical water resource, monitoring of Hindon River is started in year 1993 under the project "Water Quality Monitoring of I-lindon River under GAP Phase II" funded by Ministry of Environment and Forest, India. Data from five sampling stations namely Maheshpur, Barnawa, Daruheda, Mohan Nagar and Noida are collected and analyzed since December 1993 by Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. At each location 17 water quality parameters are observed. Further in order to restore the Designated Best Use Standards of Hindon River a number of sewerage treatment plants were started within its catchment in the year 2001 under Yamuna Action Plan and Ganga Action Plan. Any river monitoring program can be broadly divided into following stages: Sampling and Laboratory analysis, Data handling and storage, Data analysis and Information utilization. Present thesis work concentrates on the last two and most critical stages of any monitoring program i.e. Data Analysis and Information utilization.