Water quality modelling of the Ganga river basin for pollution and
contaminants analysis using SWAT model
Abstract
Ganga river basin (GRB) in the Indian subcontinent is one of the most
heavily irrigated land in the world. According to a book published in
2005 by Central Water Commission (CWC), 57% of the net irrigated land
in India lies inside GRB only. Further GRB is also one of the most
populous river basins in the world supporting almost 400 million people
of India. With increasing use of fertilizers in agriculture and
untreated sewage waste from the booming industries, there is need to
assess the water quality and the contamination in surface water. We will
use Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to model the hydrology of the
river basin. For water quality analysis, SWAT is able to simulate the
impact on hydrology, sediment and nutrients load, due to physical
changes brought in the large ungauged river basins. We hypothesize that
numerous small, rain-fed rivers in the Indo-Gangetic floodplain that are
flowing predominantly through agricultural land are important non-point
source of Nitrogen(N) and Phosphorus (P) and will control the nutrient
budget of large river system. SWAT model will be used to simulate flow
and nutrient/sediment concentrations of nitrogen/nitrates, phosphorus
and sediment in the upper reach at Uttarkashi and Rishikesh, in the
middle reach at Kanpur, Lucknow and Varanasi, and Farakka at the lower
reach. SWAT model will be calibrated at daily/monthly time step for flow
and monthly scale for water quality parameters. We will analyze the
water quality in the basin using widely used Water Quality Index (WQI)
considering pH, TDS, BOD, COD, hardness, nitrates, carbonates and
silicates. We will use gridded climate data from Indian Meteorological
Department (IMD) and water quality data from CWC. SRTM 90 m DEM, 300 m
Land use/land cover map from Climate Change Initiative (CCI) and 7 km
soil map from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).