Quality of Water in and Around Chandigarh Region - A Review

It is well documented that water is an essential component for the survival of all living beings and development processes on earth. Water is used for domestic purposes, industrial processes and agriculture. All these processes require good quality water. River water and underground water is generally used for almost all these processes. So it is very important to know the water quality of sources time to time for the sustainable development. In this paper we have discussed the quality of ground water, surface water and river water of Chandigarh and nearby places such as Parwanoo, Panchkula, S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali) on the basis of reports available online. The different water quality parameters such as hardness, alkalinity, Ca2+, Mg2+, BOD, COD, TDS, pH, conductivity, temperature etc was considered for this review study. Although very few studies have been conducted to check the water quality of this area but on carefully reviewing the available reports and published work, it has been observed that the water quality in some of the places is below the standards of water quality prescribed by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Proper functioning of Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) need to be checked and Industrial waste should be properly treated before going to the catchment areas.