Water quality indices used for water resources vulnerability assessment using GIS technique: A review

Water is vital to health, well-being, food security and socioeconomic development of mankind. Therefore, the presence of contaminants in natural freshwater continues to be one of the most important environmental issues in many areas of the world, where a significant part of population are far away from potable water supply. Low income communities, which rely on untreated surface water and groundwater supplies for domestic and agricultural uses are the most exposed to the impact of poor water quality. Availability of good quality water will ensure the sustainability of socio-economic development. In recent scenario the priority of the government has shifted to other sectors of the economy, rather than focusing on the combating outbreaks of water borne diseases due to consumption of contaminated groundwater. However, a large population in India still lives in absolute poverty in both urban and rural areas, lacking access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. More than 90% of the rural population uses untreated groundwater for domestic purposes. Nearly half of the population is not at all aware of the water borne diseases affecting their health. Research should be focus on a regular monitoring of water bodies with required number of parameters for the welfare of the society. Water quality indices (WQI’s) are one of the most effective tools to communicate information on the quality of any water body. WQI’s aim at giving a single value to the Water quality of a source reducing great amount of parameters into a simpler expression and enabling easy interpretation of monitoring data. The present paper focuses in brief the methodologies for finding out Water Quality Indices (WOI’s) and also assessing the suitability of water quality for drinking purposes using GIS techniques. © 2013 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved.