P. KANCHANA MALA', S. SRISUDIIA AND P. GUNASEKARAN
Abstract
Vaigai River flows in the southern part of India. The historic city of Madurai in TamilNadu is located on the banks of this river. Modernization and industrialization in its neighbourhood in the recent past have greatly influenced the water quality. The impact of the urbanization activity on the water quality of Vaigai River was assessed in terms of physico-chemical parameters (pH, temperature, alkalinity, chloride, dissolved oxygen, ROD, COD, TS, TDS, inorganic phosphorus, nitrate, chlorophyll a and phycobilins) in the four selected sampling stations along the run way of Vaigai River in Madurai city, during August 2008 to July 2009. All the datasets were subjected to Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis and test of significance at 1% and 5% level. Multivariate statistical, Bray-Curtis cluster and principal component analysis was applied to datasets to reveal the relationship among study sites. Water Quality Index (WQ1) exceeded the limit of 100, which indicated that the samples from Vaigai river sites were not suitable for public consumption, propagation of wild life, fish culture and can be used for irrigation purposes only.