Water quality assessment of river Hindon at Ghaziabad, India: impact of industrial and urban wastewater

River Hindon is a major source of water to the highly populated and predominantly rural population of western Uttar Pradesh, India. The main goal of the present study was to assess the impact of urban and industrial activities on the water quality of river Hindon at the Ghaziabad. For this, river water samples were collected from six different sites all along the route of Hindon main streamline and its branch and were analyzed for pH, turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), total alkalinity (TA), total hardness (TH) and calcium hardness (Ca-H), chemical oxygen (COD) demand, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), dissolved oxygen (D.O.), sulphate (as SO42 − ), nitrate (as NO3 − ) and chloride (Cl − ) levels. There were drastic variations for EC (0.83–5.04 ms), turbidity (28.7–109.3 NTU), TDS (222.2–2426.3 mg l − 1), SO4 (36.4–162.4 mg l − 1), NO3 (106–245 mg l − 1), TA (347.0–596.3 mg l − 1), TH (235.1–459.9 mg l − 1), Ca–H (64.5–402.2 mg l − 1), BOD (27–51 mg l − 1) and COD (85.0–337.4 mg l − 1) levels at different sites. Water pollution indicating parameters were manifold higher than the prescribed limit by the National Pollution Control Agency, i.e. CPCB. This is the first study on itself and the interrelationship of human activities and river water quality makes the study significant and interesting to assess the pollution load discharges in catchments of Hindon at Ghaziabad. Overall, the water quality of Hindon was relatively poor with respect to its use for domestic purposes.