Social Science

Assessment of Hydro-Chemical Properties of Rudrasagar Lake Ecosystem Using Comprehensive Pollution Index and Geoaccumulation Modelling: A Case from Ramsar Wetland of India

Authors: Pradip Debnath
Comments: 33 Pages. (Note by viXra Admin: Author name is required in the article)

Surface water quality assessment is crucial for sustainable ecosystem management as they are alarmingly susceptible to contamination. The recent study in the Rudrasagar Lake pioneered a novel approach combining geospatial techniques along with integrated environmental indices to demonstrate dynamics of spatial variation of contaminants. The fundamental objective of this study is to evaluate hydro-chemical properties of the water samples using inverse distance weighted method through comprehensive pollution index for wetland (CPIW) and Geoaccumulation index (Igeo). To assess and determine the hydro-chemical characteristics and spatial variation, 24 sites from peripheral and core areas were selected for sampling. Variables were measured following the standard protocol and compared with WHO permissible limit. Meanwhile, bivariate and multivariate statistical approaches were employed to interpret the strong interdependence or magnitude among the variables. Principal component analysis (PCA) was utilised for data dimensionality reduction and source identification of the contamination. PCA revealed five factors accounted about 80.0% of the total variance in the surface water quality data set and attributed that anthropogenic and geo-genic factor responsible for spatial variations in physico-chemical parameters. CPIW varying from 0.46—1.50 and about 63.07% of the sampling sites indicated insignificant pollution, 26.92% indicated low pollution, while only 0.01% showed high pollution. Furthermore, Geoaccumulation index (Igeo) values suggested about 67.30% of sampling sites characterised by insignificant pollution zones, 32.69% fall under low pollution zones. CPIW indicates only 0.01% of the sampled sites fall under the highly contaminated zone. Additionally, spatial variation of each hydro-chemical property along with water quality clearly defined that anthropogenic and geo-genic factors mainly determined the sources of contamination. These findings signified substantial alterations in the water quality, which can offer valuable insights for targeted wetland management strategies and recommended that policy should be implemented immediately to manage and protect the overall wetland health.
Category: Social Science