Ecological Health and the Economics of Water Quality: An Assessment of Kolong River, Assam, India

Arup Kumar Hazarika^1, , Dilip Kumar Bora², Imdadul Islam Khan³ and Unmilan Kalita⁴

¹Department of Zoology, Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam, India

²Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya, India

³Department of Zoology, Cotton University, Assam, India

⁴Department of Economics, Gauhati University, Assam, India

Cite this paper:
Arup Kumar Hazarika, Dilip Kumar Bora, Imdadul Islam Khan and Unmilan Kalita. Ecological Health and the Economics of Water Quality: An Assessment of Kolong River, Assam, India. Applied Ecology and Environmental Sciences. 2019; 7(4):135-147. doi: 10.12691/aees-7-4-3

Abstract

River health has become one of the most important environmental issues today because of multiple anthropogenic stressors and other artificial interventions that have led to adverse long-term impacts on the physical habitats, biodiversity, ecological functions and the services provided by a water body. Kolong river, located in Assam, India, has suffered a similar fate with it being listed among the 275 most polluted rivers of India by the Central Pollution Control Board, Government of India, in 2015. This study has been carried out with the primary objective of diagnosing chemical and biological river health of the Kolong river with regard to physico-chemical parameters and abundance of the plankton community, using statistical analysis. Four sites along the river were selected for sampling purposes, namely, Jakhalabandha (Station 1), Samoguri (Station 2), Nagaon town (Station 3) and Roha (Station 4). Thirteen physico-chemical parameters were considered for the study and data were collected month-wise for which results have been shown season-wise (pre-monsoon, monsoon, retreating monsoons and winter). Tests for physico-chemical parameters were done through standard methods. Means and standard deviations along with the Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficients were also calculated. Findings indicate significant relationships among the physico-chemical parameters as well as correlation of the abundance of phytoplankton and zooplankton with abiotic factors the river which was further computed by a regression analysis. Phytoplankton dominated over zooplankton in all the Stations in the present study. High abundance of Bacillariophyceae, in case of phytoplankton, and Copepods, in case of zooplankton, were encountered, indicating poor ecological health of the Kolong river. The study also involves a briefing on the economics of water quality and relevant economic strategies for managing ecological quality of Kolong. The study finally asserts on the need for minimising anthropogenic disturbances through both government and people participation, so as to manage pollution while preserving the ecological heath of the Kolong river.

Keywords:
Kolong river ecological health physico-chemical anthropogenic environment water economics

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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