Assessment of water and soil quality in the urban stretch of girudhumal river sub basin

Abstract

Ancient civilizations developed along the banks of the rivers and still millions of people are living on the flood plains of the rivers for their survival.The urbanization and industrialization development affects the river ecosystem all over the world, in particular, developing countries. For the past four decades, the quality of water in Indian rivers has been worsening due to disposal of industrial, rural and urban waste, solid waste, agricultural run-off and domestic sewage. There are 17 major and 127 minor river basins in Tamilnadu. They are all facing similar pollution problems. Girudhumal river sub basin is one among the sub basin of Gundar basin in Tamilnadu. Girudhumal river originates from the surplus of Thuvariman tank in the western region of Madurai. It travels first 28 km in urban and peri urban areas of Madurai south and at the end, it joins with Gundar river near Kamuthi. Till 1960 s, this river was used for bathing, washing and agricultural purposes and it acts as a flood carrier during high flood in Vaigai river.At present, there are many encroachments along the river banks.Agricultural lands are converted into residential buildings and uncontrolled urbanization converted this river into a sewage carrier for Madurai south. The wastewater generated from densely populated areas of Madurai south is being discharged into the Girudhumal river. This river water (wastewater) is stored in the peri urban tanks and used for irrigation purposes. The main objective of the study is to identify the potential environmental impacts on this river basin due to newlineimpacts of urbanization. Surface water samples were collected at 22 locations in river and peri urban tanks at 1.5 km intervals from origin. Analysis was carried out to study the characterization of wastewater and its dilution effects, during post monsoon and summer seasons. newline newline