Water Quality Index of Cauvery River and its Three Tributaries, South India Hema S.*, Subramani T.** *Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India **Department of Mining Engineering, CEG, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Online published on 14 October, 2016. Abstract Various physico-chemical parameters including selected heavy metals (As, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd and Cr) of the Cauvery River and its three tributaries were studied in order to understand the level of contamination due to anthropogenic and natural impacts in the river basin. It was found that the water quality of Cauvery and Bhavani rivers varied from Excellent to Marginal range for drinking, whereas Noyyal River was found unfit for drinking purposes. It was observed that the impact of human activity was severe on most of the parameters in these rivers. According to the water quality index, the water quality was found to be excellent with WQI less than 50 in all the samples of Bhavani and Cauvery Rivers. The water quality was good in Amaravti River during post-monsoon and it was found unfit for drinking during NE-monsoon at few places. All the samples of Noyyal River had WQI values above 300 and were found unfit for drinking in both the seasons and seeks immediate attention. Even though the parameters analysed are all within the safe limits in Cauvery River, it would be better to treat the sewage before discharging into the rivers from the human settlement areas. Top Keywords Cauvery River, Heavy metal concentration, Water quality index, Noyyal River. Top |