A Review on Water Quality Indices

Abstract

Water, as vital natural resource, is indispensable for human activities, both directly and indirectly. It significantly contributes to a country’s economic development, encompassing above-ground and underground water resources. However, ongoing pollution from surface contaminants is causing concerning degradation in both confined and unconfined aquifers, warranting the need for addressing this issue. Water quality indices (WQIs) serve this purpose by simplifying complex water quality data, providing a single value for easier interpretation. Surface water quality indices have achieved global recognition, while the development of groundwater quality indices is an evolving field. WQIs are established based on specific water quality criteria set by national and international organizations, which consider various parameters based on the intended use of water bodies. Consequently, numerous WQI models exist, including National Sanitation Foundation (NSFWQI), Oregon (OWQI), British Columbia (BCWQI), Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environments (CCMEWQI), and country-specific variants tailored to the unique requirements of individual regions such as Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Spain, Canada, Malaysia, and others, all in accordance with the specific characteristics of the water system under assessment.

Keywords

Water quality index / Water quality parameters / Physicochemical parameters / Microbiological parameters / Sub-index / Aggregation function

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, C.S.A. and P.A.; Methodology, C.S.A. and P.A.; Investigation, P.A.; Data Curation, P.A.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, P.A.; Writing—Review & Editing, C.S.A.; Supervision, C.S.A.

Ethics Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper

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