Pratap Kumar Panda^1,, Prasant Kumar Dash², Rahas Bihari Panda³

The river Salandi after its source of origin from Meghasana hill of Similipal reserve forest travels 134kms of long distance through mining belt, industrial belt, urban area, vast agricultural area and finally meets with the river Baitarani at Tinitaraf ghat before the merging with Bay of Bengal at Dhamara Port. The river during its course of journey from Similpal reserve forest to Tinitaraf ghat receives forest decayed residues from the forest area, mining discharges from the mining belt, industrial discharges from the industrial area, urban waste materials from the urban area, agricultural residues from the agricultural fields and after all domestic waste materials from the inhabitants situated on the bank of the river. In this work, water samples collected from nine different places during summer, rainy, post-rainy and winter seasons in the year 2015 and 2016 have been analysed to study the sixteen physico-chemical parameters by using standard procedures, prescribed by APHA-2012 and out of which mean and standard deviations (SD) of twelve parameters have been calculated and computed to study Water Quality Index (WQI) through Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment (CCME) method in a modified manner for the year 2015 and 2016. The study reveals that water quality of both the years is marginal and belongs to class-D. Further, it is concluded that comparatively poorer water quality of the year 2016 than the year 2015 is due the higher amplitude (F₃). Besides, analysis of physico-chemical parameters confirms that the river Salandi is polluted with respect to Cr(VI), iron, chloride, fluoride and pathogenic bacteria and gravity of pollution is more during rainy, post-rainy than the summer and winter seasons and pollution follows a decreasing trend from upstream to downstream.

CCME, WQI, hexavalent chromium, pathogenic bacteria, river water pollution