Impact of Mass Bathing and Religious Activities on Water Quality Index of Prominent Water Bodies: A Multilocation Study in Haryana, India

The present study was designed to assess the impact of mass bathing and religious activities on water quality index (WQI) of prominent water bodies (eight) in Haryana, India. Water quality characteristics revealed significant increase in the values of nitrate, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), turbidity, total dissolved solids (TDS), conductivity, total hardness, total alkalinity, and MPN count after the religious activities. The computed WQI at all the eight selected sites varied from 47.55 to 211.42. The results revealed that there was a significant increase in the value of WQI after mass bathing or any other ritual performed. Out of eight water bodies studied three (sites 3, 4, and 5) were found under good water quality status; four sites (1, 2, 6, and 7) depicted medium water quality but site 8 was found under poor water quality after the religious activities. The good water quality status of water bodies was correlated with larger size of the water bodies and less number of pilgrims; however, the poor WQI values may be attributed to smaller size of the water body and heavy load of pilgrims on such sites. Therefore, water of these religious water bodies needed to be regularly changed after mass bathing to protect the aquatic component from different contaminations.