Department of Geography & GIS
Geo-Eye
Year: 2019, Volume: 8, Issue: 1, Pages: 28-36
Original Article
M R Aneesh1, K Mani2, T K Prasad3, Higgins Robert4
1Lecturer, Department of Geography, NSS College, Pandalam, Pathanamthitta, Kerala
2Principal (Rtd), University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
3Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Kannur University, Kannur, Kerala
4Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Received Date:11 March 2019, Accepted Date:27 April 2019
Water quality deterioration caused by land use changes has become a primary factor limiting the sustainable utilization of water resources. Rapid urbanization led to extensive land use changes which have a profound impact on surface water quality. This study is aimed to investigate the effect of land use on the water quality on a tropical river in Kerala, India. Water quality data for 20 stations were collected from Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Kozhikode for 12 physicochemical parameters pertaining to three seasons namely pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon. All the stations were then field verified to identify the land use units to which it belongs to. The grouped data was then incorporated into three indices namely Water Quality Index (WQI), Water Pollution Index (WPI), and Water Pollutants Index to identify the effect of land uses on water quality and water pollution. Results indicated that urbanization has caused severe water quality deterioration compared to forests and settlement with mixed trees (SMT).
Keywords: Urbanization; Kerala; WQI; WPI 1
© 2019 Aneesh et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Published By Bangalore University, Bengaluru, Karnataka
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