Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

DOI 10.1007/s10661-011-2047-1

Surface water quality evaluation and modeling

of Ghataprabha River, Karnataka, India
B. K. Purandara N. Varadarajan
B. Venkatesh V. K. Choubey

Received: 24 July 2010 / Accepted: 18 March 2011 / Published online: 15 April 2011
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract Belgaum city is a developmental hub

of Karnataka State in India. In the recent time,
the Government of Karnataka has planned to
set up many processing industries in the vicinity
of Belgaum to meet the growing needs of the
region and to ease out the pressure on the already existing industrial hubs in Karnataka State.
Ghataprabha, a tributary of river Krishna, is one
of the major sources of water supply to Belgaum
city and adjoining areas. During the last decade, a
lot of anthropogenic activities such as unplanned
agricultural activities are ongoing in many parts
of the catchment. Therefore, people of Belgaum
are more concerned about the quality of water in
Ghataprabha river. Considering the significance
of water quality of the river, surface water samples were collected during Pre- and Post-monsoon
season from selected locations and analyzed for
both physical and chemical constituents in the

laboratory. The results indicate that the chemical

parameters such as bicarbonates, sulphates, chlorides, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium
are within the permissible limits. QUAL2E model
was applied to assess the impact of point and nonpoint sources of pollution on the river water quality. Results show that the water quality conditions
are highly acceptable all along the river stretch.
Further, the variation of DOBOD5 with river
discharge was also estimated. Also, a significant
variations in DO (decrease in DO) with the increase in river flow was observed. However, at
the downstream end, considerable improvement
in DO was noticed which is attributed to the
damming effect of the reservoir.

B. K. Purandara (B) N. Varadarajan

B. Venkatesh V. K. Choubey
Regional Center, National Institute of Hydrology,
Hanuman nagar, Belgaum, Karnataka, India
e-mail: purandarabk@yahoo.com

Introduction

N. Varadarajan
e-mail: nvarad@yahoo.com
B. Venkatesh
e-mail: bvenki30@yahoo.com
V. K. Choubey
e-mail: vkc@nih.ernet.in

Keywords Water quality modeling

Dissolved oxygen Biochemical-oxygen demand
Reareation

The environmental consequences of industrialization and intensification of agriculture have, for

a long time, been neglected and unfortunately
still are in many parts of the world. Exploitation
of mineral resources and energy production have
made deep cuts into the natural landscape and
altered the flow of water in large river basins.
Concentrated effluents from manufacturing and

1372

industrial production plants have added hazardous substances to natural water courses and
reduced their ability to sustain aquatic life. The
rapid increase in population density has generated human wastes, which have reached surface
waters or percolated into the ground with both
immediate contamination and long term deterioration of the aquatic environment. To feed the
ever-increasing populations a highly intensified
agro-industry, depending more on massive use of
chemicals as fertilizers or pesticides, has emerged
in the industrialized as well as many developing countries like our country. In addition, the
most devastating effect on water quality are by
anthropogenic activities combined with deforestation and related activities. In order to formulate

Fig. 1 Ghataprabha
representative basin with
water sampling locations

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

water pollution control policies and programs, it is

necessary to know the existing nature, magnitude
and sources of the various pollution loads which
degrade the quality of river water. The study
of behaviour of these pollution loads especially
the concentration profile of different pollutants
in the river water is equally important to assess
the degree of pollution that are prevailing and to
identify the stretches which violate the standards
and harmful for use. The Ghataprabha River is
one of the major sources of water for the people of
Maharashtra and Northern districts of Karnataka.
However, industrial development accompanied
by population and consumption growth may impose heavy pollution loads to the river. Further,
discharging of organic and inorganic pollutants as

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

well as nutrients may damage the river quality

conditions. Keeping the significance of river water
quality maintenance of Ghataprabha River, the
present study has been carried out to understand
and assess the possible sources of point and nonpoint source pollution.

Study area
The study area of Ghataprabha is the watershed
up to Daddi, which is the first gauge-discharge
site on the stream (Fig. 1). The catchment area
of the sub-basin lies between latitudes 15 50 and
16 40 N and longitude 74 08 and 74 30 E. The
Ghataprabha River originates from the Western
Ghats at an altitude of 884 m, flows eastwards for a
length of 283 km before joining the Krishna. Tamraparni River is a tributary of river Ghataprabha
joins the main stream at Daddi. A dam has been
constructed at Hidkal (which is about 2025 km
from Daddi) in Hukkeri taluk (Belgaum district,
Karnataka, India) to impound 2,200 Mm3 of water
for supplying to adjoining taluks for irrigation
purpose.

Geomorphology, soil and geology

Geomorphologically, the catchment is relatively
flat and gently undulating with isolated hillocks
intervened by valleys. The catchment is somewhat
oval in shape. The relief of the basin varies between 682 and 1,039 m. Very steep contours are
observed towards western side of the basin. The
high basin relief observed in the catchment is an
indication of higher potential energy available to
move water and sediment downstream. Lateritic
soils (Coarse shallow soil, 22.3% and medium
deep soil, 21.4%), coarse shallow black soil (10%)
and Medium black soil (45.8%). According to
Munsells system of colour notation, soils in the
upper catchment areas having dense forest cover
are characterized by brown (7.5 YR-4/4) to dark
reddish brown (5 Y-3/3) color and light loam to
heavy loam in texture. In areas covered by shrubs,
soils are brown (5 YR-4/4) in color. However, in
the northern boundary of the catchment the soils
are reddish brown (5 YR-3/4) in nature with a

1373

medium loam texture. In the downstream of the

catchment (near Daddi), color of the soil varies
between yellowish brown (10 YR-5/8) and reddish
brown (5 YR-4/3) with medium to heavy loam texture. The geological formations found within the
basins are (1) Deccan traps of Tertiary age and (2)
sedimentary formations known as Kaladgi group
comprising limestone, shale and quartzites. The
spatial distribution of land use shows that 13.8%
is covered by forest, 35.05% is covered by shrubs,
8.35% covered by fallow lands and 42.8% covered
by Agriculture (Purandara and Choubey 1996).

Materials and methods

Field investigation and laboratory analysis
Field investigations were carried out along the
stretch of the Ghataprabha River (about 40 km
length). Water quality parameters such as Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Demand (BOD),
pH, Turbidity and also major cations and anions
were considered for the analysis. DO and pH was
determined in the field and BOD five days BOD)
was determined in the laboratory. Six crosssections were taken, samples were taken and the
analyses were carried out as per the Standard
Methods for examination of water and wastewater
(APHA 1992). The flow rate at each point was
measured using a float method.
Water quality modelling
QUAL2E model is a comprehensive and versatile
stream water quality model, which permits simulation up to 15 water quality constituent in any combination desired by the user in a branching stream
system using a finite difference solution to the
one-dimensional advectivedispersive mass transport and reaction equation (Brown and Barnwell
1987). The model allows multiple waste discharges, withdrawals, tributary flows, and inflow
and outflow. It also has the capability to compute
required dilution flows for flow augmentation to
meet the pre-specified dissolved oxygen level. The
first step in using QUAL2E is to discretization
of river stretch, which is to be modeled. This involves dividing the system into reaches of constant

1374

hydro-geometric characteristics. For each computational element, a hydrologic balance in terms of

flow (Q), a heat balance in terms of temperature
(T), and materials balance in terms of concentration is considered. The 1-D advectivedispersive
equation is solved for the steady flow and steady
state condition. Flow and loads must be steady,
but temperature, wind speed and light may vary
with time.
Discretization of river reach
The total length of the river considered for the
study is about 40 km which extend from Kanur
to Daddi. The entire stretch of river was discretized into 10 reaches with computational element lengths of 4 km each.
Hydraulic data
Flow measurements and river geometry were
measured on various dates from November 2005
to May 2006. For an assumed value of roughness
coefficient (0.025), the energy gradient slope was
computed using the Mannings equation from the
field measured hydraulic data. River hydraulic
parameters for velocity and depth were measured
at seven different locations. The variation of depth
of water varied from 0.5 to 1.2 m across the
river. The discharges from the point sources were
calculated using the velocity and cross-sectional
area. Similar method was adopted by Ghosh and
McBean (1998).
Deoxygenation coefficient
The deoxygenation rate coefficient has been obtained by the standard procedure of incubation of
the over a period of time and the samples have
been analyzed for different days at 20 C. Plots between the DO consumption and incubation time
give the laboratory rate constant at incubated
temperature.
Re-aeration rate coefficient
The oxygen transfer coefficient in natural water
depends upon the various factors such as internal

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

mixing and turbulence, temperature, wind mixing,

sewage out falls and surface films. A fast moving, shallow stream will have a much higher reaeration coefficient than a sluggish stream. There
are number of methods available for the estimation, and most commonly used are those of
Churchill et al. (1962), O Connor and Dobbins
(1958), Owens et al. (1964) and Langbein and
Darum (1967), which are all in terms of depth
and velocity. In the present study, the re-aeration
coefficient was estimated by the method suggested
(O Connor and Dobbins 1958). Sediment oxygen demands were obtained by collecting samples
from the vicinity of selected outfalls and upstream
of the local drains. Samples were analyzed in the
laboratory using standard methods to quantify
the oxygen demand. QUAL2E, being a steadystate one-dimensional model, has got its limitation
of data acceptability. Keeping all these aspects
in view, data collected from field observations
and obtained from laboratory analysis have been
made on representative form as acceptable to the
model and calibrated the model to match the
observed values. Once the input file is prepared,
the foremost task in model application is that of
calibration and validation of the model. In this
case, for DOBOD modelling, the first task would
be to match the observed and computed BOD
rather than DO. This is because the concentration of DO is mainly governed by many factors
e.g., conversion of NH3 N to NO3 N, re-aeration
coefficient, river hydraulic parameters, algal concentration conservation and respiration, etc. Once
BOD is got matched, the second task would be
to match the DO concentration in each reach.
Since the re-aeration coefficient varies with river
hydraulic data and climatological data, efforts are
to be made to calibrate those data rather than adjusting the measured values. Option of sensitivity
analysis of each/multiple parameters given in the
model provides the appropriate tool to determine
the response of the parameters on any desire location. The trail run, which represents the best
matching between observed and computed values,
is considered as the calibrated values of the model.
During the calibration, utmost care was taken to
match the calibrated and observed values of river
data.

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

1375

b
Na

Ca

HCO3

Mg

CO3

Cl

SO4

70
60

Percentage

60

40
30

50
40
30

Daddi

Tarewadi

Adakur

Satwane

Kanur

Tarewadi

Daddi

0
Adakur

0
Satwane

10

Hindgaon

10

Hindgaon

20

20

Kanur

Percentage

50

Fig. 2 Percentage distribution of a cations and b anions in Ghataprabha River during Post-monsoon

value of 7.5 to 8 usually indicates the presence

of carbonates of calcium and magnesium. However, in the present study, it is observed that the
pH in majority of the samples were less than 7.5
indicating the absence of carbonates. One of the
interesting feature that is observed in the present
study is the pH value in post-monsoon samples
are much lower than that in pre-monsoon. This is
because in the catchment area, the mining activities are going on and it brings lot of sediments

HCO3

Mg

60

60

50

50

Percentage

70

40
30

0
Daddi

10

Tarewadi

10

Adakur

SO4

30
20

Satwane

Cl

40

20

Hindgaon

CO3

Fig. 3 Percentage distribution of a cations and b anions in Ghataprabha River during Pre-monsoon

Daddi

Ca

Tarewadi

70

Kanur

Percentage

Na

Adakur

Satwane

The pH of water in Ghataprabha sub-basin varies

from slightly acidic 6.3 to slightly alkaline 7.6 during pre-monsoon and 5.9 to 7.7 in post-monsoon
season. The results indicate the lowering of pH
during the post-monsoon is the result of waste
water discharge from neighbouring villages. A pH

Hindgaon

Surface water quality evaluation

Kanur

Results and discussion

1376
Table 1 Input
parameters considered
for the study

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

Cases

Incremental
flow m3 /s

BOD decay
rate

BOD settling
rate

SOD

Outfalls
m3 /s

Case I
Case II
Case III

0.1
0.25
0.40

0.3/day
0.5/day
0.6/day

0.125 m/day
0.75 m/day
1 m/day

1.5 g/m2 /day

5 g/m2 /day
10 g/m2 /day

Nil
1
2

and reduces the pH considerably. The electrical

conductivity showed a general trend of decrease
towards downstream. However, there are some
exceptions due to the mixing of Ghataprabha
water with tributaries and also few local drains
carrying sewage water. The observed mean electrical conductivity was 101.30 micromhos/cm and
median 75.45 micromhos/cm. The maximum electrical conductivity was observed at Daddi 203 micromhos/cm. Total dissolved solids observed in
the surface water varied from 20 mg/l to 139 mg/l
indicating the suitability of water for all purposes.
Laboratory analysis of major anions and cations
were also conducted. The concentration of major
cations and anions are shown in Fig. 2a and b
(pre-monsoon) and Fig. 3a and b (post-monsoon).
The results clearly indicate that the concentrations
of major anions and cations are well within the
permissible limits.
From the above laboratory analysis, it is found
that the Ghataprabha water completely satisfies
the water quality standard prescribed for drinking
and irrigation purposes. However, a detailed field
investigation carried out by the authors all along
the Ghataprabha catchment showed that there are
number of waste water streams carrying domestic
sewage from local areas drain to Ghataprabha
River. This could damage the water quality of
river water. Therefore, to understand the impact
of sewage effluents, QUAL2E model was applied
to predict the future trend of water quality deterioration in Ghataprabha River.

Table 2 Observed and

Simulated DO and BOD
values in Ghataprabha
sub-basin

1 Kanur; 2 Hindgaon; 3
Satwane; 4 Adkur; 5
Tarewadi; 6 Daddi

Application of QUAL2E model to Ghataprabha

River
Ghataprabha River is a fresh Water River, which
supplies drinking water to Belgaum City from the
reservoir located at Hidkal in Hukkeri taluk of
Belgaum district. Water quality parameters (major cations and anions) showed that the water
quality of the river is very good for drinking purpose. However, the MPN count showed a very
high increase (exceeds 1200 MPN/ 100 ml) at various locations, indicating bacteriological infection.
DOBOD monitoring was carried out through out
the stretch of Ghataprabha (May 2005 and November 2006). From the available monitored data,
attempts were made to understand the impact of
sewage water disposal to drinking water stream,
QUAL2E model was applied for the simulation
of DOBOD concentrations. The input parameters used for the application is shown in Table 1.
Case-I represents the observed conditions in the
Ghataprabha River and Case II and Case III are
projected conditions.
In the case-I, the model was calibrated for DO
and BOD by varying parameters like BOD decay
rate, BOD settling rate, sediment oxygen demand,
and incremental inflow.
Table 2 shows the observed and simulated DO
BOD variation with temperature. Observed DO
showed a decline at Hindgaon 6.8 mg/l and Satwane 6.7 mg/l. Further, downstream of Satwane,
DO showed an improvement from 6.7 mg/l to

Stations

Temp C

DO
observed

DO
simulated

BOD
observed

BOD
simulated

1
2
3
4
5
6

18.13
18.27
18.40
18.53
18.56
18.80

7.4
6.8
6.7
6.8
7.0
7.0

7.96
7.90
7.83
7.74
7.64
7.53

1.1
1.4
1.5
1.3
1.3
0.9

0.90
1.10
1.10
0.92
0.98
0.65

Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:13711378

using

BOD
(mg/l)

Case II
DO
(mg/l)

BOD
(mg/l)

Case III
DO
(mg/l)

7.0
6.7
6.7
5.8
5.6
4.4

4.1
5.6
6.5
5.9
5.5
5.8

6.0
5.5
5.2
5.1
4.9
5.2

obtained by projecting the existing conditions as

shown in Table 3 however, setting up of any kind
of industry may cause problems in maintaining the
DO level.
It is noted that in both the cases the BOD
level at the downstream end (Daddi) is far less
than other locations which could be attributed to
the damming effect (Daddi) forms the part of the
reservoir back water) of Ghataprabha reservoir.
In order to understand the variation of DO
BOD, flow measurements were taken from each
location. It is found that there is a gradual decrease in DO in spite of having a considerable
increase in flow conditions (Fig. 4). This clearly indicates that various kinds of pollutants are added
all along the course of the river. During the field
investigation it was evident that the major cause
of water quality deterioration is due to the nonpoint sources of pollution particularly from agriculture fields and village sewage outlets. A sharp
increase in DO was observed at the downstream
end (Daddi) of the river which is attributed to
the steep increase in flow condition from 32.3 to
43.98 ft3 /s.

13.8
14.2
13.7
13.5
13.9

7.0 mg/l. However, the simulated values showed

a steady decline in DO from upstream to downstream and BOD concentration showed an increase at Hindgaon 1.4 mg/l and Satwane 1.5 mg/l.
The observed BOD reduced to 1.3 mg/l at Adkur and Tarewadi. Minimum BOD was noted at
Daddi. During the field observations, it is evident
that the variation of BOD is the result of domestic
sewage outfalls. Similar observation was made
by Pawar (2000).The magnitude of anthropogenic
activities influencing environment has increased
significantly in the catchments and riparian areas
of the river Ghataprabha. In this connection, an
attempt was made to project the entire sewage
outfalls resulting from urbanization draining into
the river.
To represent the impact of urbanization, two
cases, cases II and III, were considered as shown
in Table 1 as input parameters. The results showed
that there is a considerable change in DOBOD
level along the course of the river. Though there
is no immediate impact as evident from the results

The chemical quality of Ghataprabha River

showed that all major cations and anions are well
within the permissible limits and is a safe drinking
water source for Belgaum and adjoining areas.
QUAL2E model results also indicated that the
water is fully acceptable for both domestic and
D.O

B.O.D

30

20

10

Hindgaon

40

Kannur

10

D.O and B.O.D (mg/l)

Flow (Cusecs)

Flow
50

Daddi

Fig. 4 DOBOD
variation with river flow

Conclusion

Tarewadi

1
2
3
4
5
6.2

concentration

Adkur

Stations

DOBOD

Satwane

Table 3 Simulated
QUAL2E

1377

1378

irrigation purposes. Further, the relationship between river discharge and DOBOD concentration indicated that, there is a reduction in DO
with increase in flow which could be attributed
to the addition of point and non-point sources
along the course of the river. It is also found
that there is an improvement in water quality at
the downstream end (Daddi) which could be due
to high flow conditions existing at Daddi. From
the study, it is imperative that it is necessary to
maintain minimum flow requirement to keep the
water in good condition.
Acknowledgements Authors are highly grateful to Sh.
R. D. Singh, Director, NIH for his encouragement and
support. Mr. Satish Babu, JRF, NIH is acknowledged for
his assistance in preparing the script.

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