ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Assessment of Water Quality Index
in the St. Thomas Mount Block Using GIS
and Remote Sensing
Shanmugam Jayalakshmi, Esakimuthu Velappan
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Institute of Remote Sensing, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, India
Submission date: 2015-01-29
Final revision date: 2015-03-09
Acceptance date: 2015-03-15
Publication date: 2015-07-27
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2015;24(4):1611-1619
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ABSTRACT
Groundwater is an essential natural resource for securing drinking water and plays a significant role in
human wellbeing. However, in recent times the pressure on groundwater has increased both quantitatively and
qualitatively. The drinking water sources are threatened by contamination through human exploitation. The
objective of this study is to assess and map the spatial distribution of groundwater quality in the St. Thomas
Mount Block of Kancheepuram District, Tamilnadu, using geographical information systems (GIS) and
remote sensing (RS). This block has been experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization, and this has
made people in the area depend on groundwater resources. The suitability of water for drinking purposes in
the study area is calculated using water quality index (WQI), considering land use changes. WQI is calculated
by using standards of drinking water quality recommended by the Bureau of Indian Standards 10500:1993
(BIS) and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). In the present study, nine water-quality parameters
were considered for computing WQI. The inverse distance-weighted (IDW) spatial interpolation technique
was used to estimate the spatial distribution of groundwater parameters and WQI. It was observed from
the WQI map that around 76.5% of the total area is unfit for drinking.