Water Quality Management of water resources of Bhopal City: Challenges and scope

Abstract

Water has been the epicenter of human civilizations since the very beginning. Mankind needs water for drinking, irrigation, industrial, navigational and many other uses. With the advancement of time, the dependence of mankind on water has increased many folds. Rapid urbanization, rise in human population, increased industrial uses and wastage of water has resulted in increased water demands. Further the increased environmental pressures on the water resources has resulted in degradation in the water quality of these already scarce water resources, thereby further worsening the water availability scenario. Bhopal, the capital city of the state of Madhya Pradesh in bestowed with a large number of lentic water bodies scattered in its undulating landscape. Once a medium sized town, Bhopal always boasted of plentiful availability of water and water shortage was unheard of a couple of decades ago. However rapid urbanization in the city in past few decades has resulted in an unprecedented rise in the water demand of the city. Further the rise in population has also resulted in increased waste production, which in turn has affected the quality of the water resources in the city. At present the city depends upon Upper Lake, Kolar reservoir and River Narmada for the supply of potable water but that too is proving insufficient to cater the ever increasing demands. This has resulted in the need of probing into alternate sources of water for the city. Though the city has large number of water bodies in and around it which hold considerable amount of water capable of sufficing the immediate need. As these water sources are not used for potable purposes as yet, they often face neglect and are therefore subjected to various anthropogenic pressures resulting in degradation in the water quality of these water sources as depicted by the high concentrations of pollution indicating parameters like BOD, COD, nitrate, phosphate etc. The present study encompasses the study of water quality of some of the most important water resources of the city, identify the environmental problems associated with them and suggest mitigative measures thereof.