Evaluation of spring water quality using water quality index method for Bageshwar District, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

The quality of spring water is highly important to the people of hills for their everyday lives in Bageshwar district, which is located in Uttarakhand's Eastern Kumaon area between latitudes 29.49° N and 79.45° E, at an elevation of 1,004 meters above mean sea level. The study area map was created using the open-source freeware software QGIS, and the geocoding of the selected area was performed by entering Latitude and Longitude coordinates. Spring water were collected and analysed based on the standard methods for the eleven springs of Bageshwar city and its nearby villages for two seasons during the winter (December 2019) and in summer (March 2020). The present study assessed the drinking water quality of perennial spring in and around Bageshwar using the WQI by Weighted Arithmetic Water Quality Index Method. For calculating the WQI, 15 physicochemical parameters, namely, pH, alkalinity, Chloride, Electrical Conductivity, Total Dissolved Solid, Turbidity, Total Hardness, Potassium, Sodium, Fluoride, Iron, Nitrate, Calcium, Magnesium and Total Hardness were taken. The WQI values show that spring water with WQI values ranging from 4.57 to 17.83 in winter season 6.72 to 27.72 in summer season falls under excellent category, except for Bhaniya Dhaar-1 (BS8) village spring, which were classified to good water category. A paired t-test was applied to compare significant variations in water quality between two seasons, revealing a significant difference (p value<0.05) in water quality between seasons. Water from all of the evaluated spring sources is safe to drink, despite the fact that some parameters exceed permitted limits. To ensure the quality and security of the water supply to the people of these regions, it is preferable to conduct a simple filtration process before drinking the water sampled from the springs.