Temporal Variation of Surface Water Quality in Urbanized Watershed of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

The Water quality of Ashwani Khad, a drinking water resource for Shimla city was studied to find out it’s suitability for drinking purposes since this stream is receiving treated sewage effluent from a nearby Sewage Treatment Plant. The sewage contaminated water had caused Hepatitis A outbreak in the city few years ago. This for the first time created a hue and cry among the people leading to a constant monitoring of the water quality of Ashwani Khad since this water is directly being used for drinking purposes in the study area. Fifteen water quality parameters were tested for 26 water samples along the stream both in pre and post monsoon seasons in April 2013 and October 2013 respectively. These included pH, EC, TDS, BOD, COD, hardness, alkalinity, nitrates, phosphates, fluoride, sulphates and chlorides. The pH, EC and TDS were evaluated in the field while the other parameters were evaluated in the laboratory. The higher values of few parameters especially the BOD and COD in the water samples indicated that the water is not suitable for drinking purposes and needs certain levels of purification techniques to make it suitable for drinking purposes. The results also revealed that the Sewage Treatment Plant is not working effectively as the effluents were highly contaminated.

Keywords: Water, Sewage, Pollution, Shimla, Sewage Treatment Plant, Ashwani Khad