The present investigation was conducted during the period 2017-2018 on Ganga riverbed mining-affected areas of district Haridwar for the assessment of seasonal dynamics of surface quality using the Overall Index of Pollution (OIP). OIP analysis was helpful in determining surface water quality. For the analysis, five sampling sites were selected with triplicate analysis of collected water sample were done to represent the effective impact of riverbed mining on selected physicochemical parameters. OIP value of surface water quality were found in winter (excellent: 1.13) > summer (acceptable: 3.37) > monsoon (slightly polluted: 7.94). As compared to site where mining was not carried out, the spatial analysis showed that the selected riverbed mining sites had high OIP score. Therefore, it was concluded that the riverbed mining practice had a negative influence on the surface water quality of the Ganga River in the selected region, and hence should be given special attention to maintaining ecological sustainability.

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Rivers play an important role in the life of human beings. Most of the ancient cities are situated near the river systems and peoples were dependent on it for their livelihood needs, transportation, and raw material for construction, drinking and irrigation purpose. The degradation of the river system is based on river bed material and discharge of environmental pollution such as wastewater, agricultural runoff, and also tourism activities. Besides this, discharge of wastewater, tourism activity, and agricultural runoff into the river causes the eutrophication condition due to the discharge of nutrients in excess amount. The mining activity also affects the floodplain area and riparian zone of the river which causes the flood condition in the river. The mining activities led to change the channel morphology characteristic, increased the progressive degradation in upstream and downstream stretch and also it changes the substrate structure of the river. These activities directly affect the aquatic biodiversity and river regime. For preventing the river system some natural material and man-made methods such as plantation of vegetation and trees, training the river bank with stone, rocks. Therefore, this chapter emphasizes how the rivers system is classified on the basis of sources, geomorphological characteristics, river age, stream order, biotic zone classification and whitewater classification methods and also discuss the degradation of the river system by the river bed material and environmental pollution activities.

In the past two decades, freshwater bodies and their water quality have deteriorated rapidly due to several natural and anthropogenic causes, as well as rapid urbanization and industrialization. Using environmental assessment tools, eight sampling stations were used to assess the water quality of the upper Ganga and its major headstreams between January 2019 and December 2021 and to assess the impact of human-led activities on the environment and the suitability of the catchment basin to perpetuate aquatic ecological diversity. During the current study period, water quality indices such as the Water Quality Index (WQI), Nemerow Pollution Index (NPI), and the Overall index of pollution (OIP) were employed to assess water quality. Twelve physicochemical parameters were examined using appropriate techniques and then compared to international standards. A small increase was observed in some physicochemical parameters, such as pH, Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, and Biological Oxygen Demand, at sampling stations 7 and 8. In the upper Ganga basin, all three indices (WQI, NPI, and OIP) accurately recorded numerous natural and human events at the selected sample sites. The water quality demonstrated that aquatic species were abundant. The water quality at some sample stations was also

The spatial and temporal variation in the distribution, abundance and assemblage structure of zooplankton were examined in a mining-impacted stretch of river Ganga. The collection of samples has been done from three different sampling zones such as Z1 (Chandi Bridge Ghat) as reference zone, Z2 (Shyampur), and Z3 (Bisanpur) as mining-intruded area from May 2017 to April 2018. During the analysis, twenty-eight species of zooplankton kindred to four groups mainly Rotifera (ten species), Protozoa (five species), Cladocera (eight species), and Copepoda (five species) were identified. In the course of analysis, it was observed that Rotifera were dominant (43.49 %) followed by Cladocera (19.58 %), Protozoa (18.31 %), and Copepoda (18.62 %). The results showed that the distribution and abundance of zooplankton fluctuated more at Z1 (reference zone) as compared with Z2 and Z3 (mining-intruded zones). The diversity indices also indicated the higher richness, abundance, and evenness of zooplankton ranging from 3.145 to 3.180 at Z1, 3.081 to 3.129 at Z2, and 3.130 to 3.175 at Z3. The canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed positive and negative correlation between the zooplankton and water quality of the river Ganga. The present study shows that the anthropogenic activities such as river bed mining disturbed the water quality through enhancing the turbidity and nutrients load in the aquatic system. However, these changes in water quality significantly affected the distribution and abundance of zooplankton.

Water quality plays a vital and key role in estimating the diversity and abundance of phytoplankton in freshwater ecosystem. The water quality of freshwater body is rapidly deteriorating by various anthropogenic activities and diverse emancipations from the population growth, urbanization, and industrialization. The aim of present research work was to estimate the anthropogenic influence on water quality and phytoplankton diversity of upper Ganga basin. The water quality and plankton diversity of a Ganga River and its major tributaries was studied between September 2018 and September 2020 in eight sampling stations. Some physico‐chemical parameters like turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and biological oxygen demand showed a slight increase in sampling stations 7 and 8. Multi‐correlation was calculated between physico‐chemical parameters and phytoplankton density. Totally 31 genera of phytoplankton were recorded and represented by five groups, Bacillariophyceae (14 genera), Chlorophyceae (11 genera) Myxophyceae (4 genera), Euglenophyceae (1 genera), and Xanthophyceae (1 genera). Dissolved oxygen showed a direct influence on the distribution of plankton and also showed a positive correlation with phytoplankton diversity. Finally, it can be concluded that human activities including River bed mining, construction of Dam, and barrages had negatively impacted the water quality and phytoplankton diversity. Still, these kinds of activities to be checked regularly and can be controlled.

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