Assessment of Surface Water Quality Using GIS: Case of Tapi Basin, Surat, Gujarat, India

Abstract

Quality and quantity of water bodies is of prime importance for sustainable development. Tapi basin is the lifeline of Surat city, as it fulfills the majority of its water requirement. Due to the impact of urbanization and industrialization, the water quality of the Tapi basin has been adversely affected. The present study is focussed on assessing water quality of Tapi basin, with the aims: (i) to give an overview of present water quality of Tapi basin, (ii) to determine spatial dissemination of water quality parameters by means of BOD, COD, chloride and TDS, and (iii) to generate map for river water quality in the study area by using GIS. Water quality of the basin was assessed by taking samples from nine locations through the flow path of basin within the assessment area and an interpolation technique, that is, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), is used to obtain the spatial dissemination of water quality parameters of the basin. The results indicated that the quality of water is more deteriorated on the downstream side as compared to that of the upstream side. From the assessment of water with GIS and IDW, it is concluded that despite urbanization and industrialization, the quality of surface water is predominately average to unsuitable.