Impacts of Land Use Change on Water Quality Index in the Upper Ganges River near Haridwar, Uttarakhand: A GIS-Based Analysis
Pradip Kumar Maurya,
Sk Ajim Ali,
Raied Saad Alharbi,
Krishna Kumar Yadav,
Faisal M. Alfaisal,
Ateeque Ahmad,
Pakorn Ditthakit,
Shiv Prasad,
You-Kyung Jung,
Byong-Hun Jeon
Affiliations
Pradip Kumar Maurya
Department of Zoology and Environmental Science, Gurukula Kangari Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar 249404, India
Sk Ajim Ali
Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India
Raied Saad Alharbi
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Krishna Kumar Yadav
Faculty of Science and Technology, Madhyanchal Professional University, Ratibad, Bhopal 462044, India
Faisal M. Alfaisal
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Ateeque Ahmad
Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India
Pakorn Ditthakit
Center of Excellence in Sustainable Disaster Management, School of Engineering and Technology, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat 80161, Thailand
Shiv Prasad
Division of Environment Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
You-Kyung Jung
Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Wonju 26493, Korea
Byong-Hun Jeon
Department of Earth Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Korea
The water quality of rivers is deteriorating due to human interference. It is essential to understand the relationship between human activities and land use types to assess the water quality of a region. GIS is the latest tool for analyzing this spatial correlation. Land use land cover, and change detection are the best illustration for showing the human interactions with land features. This study assessed water quality index of the upper Ganges River near Haridwar, Uttarakhand, and spatially correlated it with changing land use to reach a logical conclusion. In the upper course of Ganges, along a 78-km stretch from Kaudiyala to Bhogpur, water samples were collected from five stations. For water quality index, physicochemical parameters like pH, EC, DO, TDS, CaCO3−, CaCO3, Cl−, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, F−, Fe2+ were considered. The results of the spatial analysis were evaluated through error estimation and spatial correlation. The root mean square error between spatial land use and water quality index at the selected sampling sites was estimated to be 0.1443. The spatial correlation between land use change and site-wise differences in water quality index also showed a high positive correlation, with R2 = 0.8455. The degree of positive correlation and root mean square error strongly indicated that the water quality of the river in the upper course of the Ganges is highly impacted by human activities.
