Assessment of Water Quality in Bawashaswar Dam/Kifri During Red Tide

In summer 2021, water in Bawashaswar Dam turned red as a result of drought, decreasing in water supply and presence of high amount of anthropogenic pollutants. This strange situation had not happened in the region before, raising concerns among water users. In the present study, 12 samples were collected from various locations inside the reservoir. The selected physicochemical parameters include turbidity, pH, dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), total hardness (TH), Magnesium (Mg+²), Calcium (Ca+²), Sulfate (SO₄ ^-2), dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), Iron (Fe⁺²) and Fluoride (F^-) were analyzed and were also used to determine water quality index (WQI). The results were obtained on the weighted arithmetic index (WAI) method. So, the parameters of water quality were found to be very high exceeding the limit range. This indicated that water in the reservoir has poor water quality and cannot be used either for drinking, irrigation, and fish culture.

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