Ajay Pradhan,
Correspoding author: President & CEO of C2S2, New Delhi, India, Email: ajay.pradhan@c2s2.in
Raveendra Kumar Rai
Technical Director & Chief Hydrologist of WEES Engineering Solutions Pvt Ltd. India
ABSTRACT
Due to continuous population growth and industrialization along with intensive agriculture to meet food demand, good quality water has become rare in most of the basins of India. Up to the last decade, to solve the water related issues in India, water quantity and quality were considered individually; and it was realized that individual consideration of these parameters will not solve the problem for long term. Therefore, at present, a concept of integrated water resources management has been encouraged to manage the water resources and
pollution control in the rivers. In the present study, an efficacy of a decision support system (DSS) has been presented for the Yamuna River to augment the good quality of water as environmental flows, which include the hydrology, natural resources, pollution, socio-economics, infrastructural development, etc of the basin. Using the DSS, numbers of possible scenarios were tested and it is revealed that installation of sewage treatment plants (STPs) alone cannot improve the water quality of the river when river is highly intercepted. To ensure the environmental flows in the river, integrated water resources management has become important at micro-watershed level.
Keywords: Decision support system: River pollution; Yamuna river: India.