SR-39 : Development of water quality index

Abstract

Increasing levels of water pollution, with resulting billion dollar use and control programs, necessitate development of water quality indices that provide a means for quantifying and evaluating the quality of a given body of water. Because data output of current water monitoring stations is enormous, and dimensional reporting units are varied and do not combine in a straight forward algebraic manner, even scientifically trained users are unable to assimilate the data and report true quality of water without some methodology to provide data simplification and summation. Possibly even more serious, users with a limited technical background, such as governmental administrators and the general public, are unable to understand and properly interpret raw water quality data stated in scientific dimensional units such as micromohs per cm. Thus, there is a need for a readily comprehensible water quality index system that will bring the important water polluting elements together within one unifying frame work. The index of water quality would communicate the quality of water to those with limited technical knowledge. The water quality index, to be feasible and useful must reduce the vast quantity of water quality information into the simplest form without losing the relevant information. If the index is well designed, however, the measurements used will be representative and will be quantified in such a way that the pollution level reflected by these various measurements comparable with each other and impart a connotation to the scientifically untrained, as well as to the water quality experts, of the overall quality of the water at a given time.