Abstract

The river Tamirabarani is one of the perennial rivers in India which feed two major districts (Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi) of Tamil Nadu, India. Due to high anthropogenic activities, urbanization practices, irrigational and livestock activities along the river bank habitations increases pollution threat. The present study was carried out in January to December , 2020 to assess the quality of water and to classify the river stretches using multiplicative aggregation function. The results showed water quality deterioration during the month of April whereas remaining periods showed the quality up to fair level. Excellent quality of water was recorded at
21.53 %, very good quality at 28.47 %, good quality at 33.33 %, fair quality at 13.89 % and marginal quality at 2.78 % of sampling sites during the study tenure.
Correlation study between physicochemical properties also reveals significant negative relationship with the Water Quality Index (WQI) scores. The index function makes easy interpretation of results which in-turn increases the effectiveness of management strategies to bringing back the originality of the river.

Key words: Water Quality Index; Tamirabarani; Sub Index; Correlation; Urbanization