Hydrological influences on the water quality trends in Tamiraparani Basin,South India

Water quality variables – Turbidity, pH, Electrical Conductivity(EC), Chlorides and Total Hardness (TH) were monitored at adownstream location in the Tamiraparani River during 1978–1992. The observations were made at weekly intervals in a watertreatment and supply plant using standard methods. Graphical andstatistical analyses were used for data exploration, trenddetection and assessment. Box-Whisker plots of annual andseasonal changes in variables indicated apparent trends beingpresent in the data and their response to the seasonal influenceof the monsoon rainfall. Further, the examination of the medianvalues of the variables indicated that changes in the directionof trend occurred during 1985–1986, especially in pH, EC and TH. The statistical analyses were done using non-parametric methods,the ANCOVA on rank transformed data and the Seasonal Man-Kendalltest. The presence of monotonic trend in all the water qualityvariables was confirmed, however, with independent direction ofchange. The trend line was fitted by the method of leastsquares. The estimated values indicated significant increases inEC (28 S cm^-1) while significant decreases were observed inturbidity (90 NTU), pH (0.78), and total hardness (23 ppm) in a span of 15 years. The changes induced in river flow by the addition of a stabilizing reservoir, the influence of seasonal and spatialpattern of monsoon rainfall across the river basin and the increased agriculture appear causative factors for the water quality trends seen in the Tamiraparani River system.