Paper Title
Application Of Water Quality Index (WQI) For The Assessment Of Surface Water Bodies (Lakes)

Abstract
Water quality index (WQI) is valuable and unique rating to depict the overall water quality status in a single term that is helpful for the selection of appropriate treatment technique to meet the concerned issues. The present work aims at assessing the water quality index (WQI) in the surface waterbodies (Ambazari, Futala and Gandhisagar lake) situated in Nagpur city, Maharashtra, India, by monitoring five sampling locations within all lake ( viz. Inlet1, inlet2, centre, corner and outlet) for a period of 3 months from August to October-2014. (pre-immersion, immersion and post-immersion period) For calculating the WQI, 14 parameters, namely, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, total hardness, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, sulphate, nitrate, fluorides and iron were considered. It is apparent from WQI values that all studied lake water with WQI values ranging from 42.28 to 169.37 especially Futala lake (55.81 to 169.37), Ambazari lake (42.28 to 109.66) and Gandhisagar Lake (60.82 to 120.10) falls under poor water category. It is observed that the values of physicochemical parameters significantly increased during the immersion period and then declined in the post- immersion period, however the general trendobserved was : immersion > post – immersion > pre-immersion values. The present study revealed that all studied lake water are polluted (due to surface run-off, bathing activities, agriculture run-off, effuents from upstream from surrounding industrial and garden area, immersion of idols of God and Goddess during festival season) and is unsuitable for human consumption, irrigation, industrial purpose also for the survival of life forms unless treated properly. Keywords: Physicochemical analysis, WQI, lake, water pollution, festivals, surface water.