Assessment of water quality index and physicochemical characteristics of drinking water of Agra City, India

Water Quality Index (WQI), a technique ofrating water quality, is an effective tool to assess quality and ensure sustainable safe use of water for drinking. The present work is aimed to assess the drinking water quality of Agra city for knowing the suitability of drinking purpose by calculating the WQI and using Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques. Fourteen drinking water samples were collected from different parts of the city during post-monsoon, 2017 for comprehensive physicochemical analysis. Six parameters were considered for calculating the WQI such as: pH, Temperature, Electrical Conductivity, Turbidity, Total hardness (TH) and Total dissolved solid (TDS). The spatial distribution maps of the above mentioned parameters were prepared by using GIS, software. The computed WQI values ranges from 157.08 to 404.51, indicating heavy pollution load in water. More than half of the locations fall in Poor to unfit water indicating the drinking water in the concerned area is unsuitable for drinking purposes.