A study of surface water and sediment pollution for a few entrapped water sources in and around Guwahati city

Abstract

The objective of this study was to monitor and assess quality of water of a few entrapped sources, such as ponds, wells and natural reservoir in Guwahati city. The quality of the bed sediments of these sources were also studied with respect to some pollution indicators. The introductory chapter, CHAPTER 1, gives a review of literature pertaining to the topic, particularly the pollution of freshwater resources and its impact on the environment. The factors affecting the quality of surface water have been briefly enumerated and the problems of maintaining drinking water quality in urban areas have been reviewed. The water quality situation in India has been briefly described on the basis of published literature. It is being pointed out that the water quality monitoring and assessment is still in its infancy in the North-Eastern region of India and this work would be of help to fulfil some of the gaps in the over-all environmental database for the region. The chapter gives a general description of the broad features of the study area including average climatological parameters, land use and water use patterns, disposal of sewage and drainage, etc. [2 tables, 115 references, 31 pages] CHAPTER 2 gives the details of experimental methodology followed in this work. It includes a brief description of the nine entrapped water sources of which five are ponds, three wells and one natural reservoir. Water and sediment samples were collected at four seasons, monsoon, post-monsoon, winter and premonsoon and the collection was done between June 1990 and July 1992. This chapter then describes the methodology adopted for measuring each of the parameters, outlining the importance of each parameters in water quality studies. [9 plates, 1 figure, 41 references, 43 pages] CHAPTER 3, Results and Discussion, gives the results of investigation of water and sediment quality of the nine water sources along with water quality of municipal supply water which was taken as the reference. The results and discussions have been presented...