This book covers water quality indices (WQI) in depth – it describes what purpose they serve, how they are generated, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how to make the best use of them. It is a concise and unique guide to WQIs for chemists, chemical/environmental engineers and government officials.
Whereas it is easy to express the quantity of water, it is very difficult to express its quality because a large number of variables determine the water quality. WQIs seek to resolve the difficulty by translating a set of a large number of variables to a one-digit or a two-digit numeral. They are essential in communicating the status of different water resources in terms of water quality and the impact of various factors on it to policy makers, service personnel, and the lay public. Further they are exceedingly useful in the monitoring and management of water quality.
With the importance of water and water quality increasing exponentially, the importance of this topic is also set to increase enormously because only with the use of indices is it possible to assess, express, communicate, and monitor the overall quality of any water source.
- Provides a concise guide to WQIs: their purpose and generation
- Compares existing methods and WQIs and outlines strengths and weaknesses
- Makes recommendations on how the indices should be used and under what circumstances they apply
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This book provides an overview of water quality indices and a guide to interpretation.
Part 1: Water Quality Indices Based Predominantly on Physico-chemical
characteristics
1. Why water quality indices2. Approaches to WQI formulation3. Conventional
Indices for determining fitness of waters for different uses4. Combating
uncertainities in indice-based assessment of water quality: The use of more
advanced statistics, probability theory, and artificial intelligence5.
Indices based on relatively advanced statistical analysis of water quality
data6. Water quality indices based on fuzzy logic and other methods of
artificial intelligence7. Probabilistic or stochastic water quality indices8.
Planning or decision making indices9. Indices for assessing groundwater
quality10. Water quality indices of USA and Canada11. WQI generating software
and a WQI-based virtual instrument
Part 2: Water Quality Indices Based on Bioassessment
12. Water quality indices based on bioassessment: an introduction13. The
biotic indices14. Indices of biological integrity or the multimetric
indices15. Multivariate approaches for bioassessment of water quality
Part 3: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
16. Water quality indices : Looking back, looking ahead
Tabassum-Abbasi has received her BTech, MTech, and PhD degrees in instrumentation and control engineering, environmental engineering, and environmental technology, respectively all from Pondicherry University. She too has been a class topper throughout, receiving gold medals. She has been working as Assistant Professor at the University of
Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun since January 2019, attaining senior grade (Level 2) in 2022, and selection grade (Level 3) recently. She has spent an year (2023- 24) in post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh as a British Council Women in Science Fellow. Besides research papers on bioprocess engineering and sustainability in highly cited journals, she has received three patents, and has registered another two. S. A. Abbasi, presently Distinguished Professor, School of Advanced Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun, has earlier been a full university professor and director (1987- 2015), and Emeritus Professor (2015-2024) at the Centre for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering, Pondicherry University. Prior to it he was the founder Head of the Water Quality & Environment Division at the Centre for Water Resources, Kozhikode (1979-87), and a Visiting-cum-adjunct Professor at California State University (1984- 1987). He has also been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Minnesota, Florida, Nevada, CaliforniaBerkeley, Malaya and Al-Ahsa.
Prof Abbasi is considered among the worlds foremost experts in the fields of bioprocess engineering, process safety, and environmental engineering.
Among numerous coveted honours and awards received by Prof Abbasi are the National Design Award in Environmental Engineering, the IPCL award for Safety and Hazard Management in Petroleum Industries, the National Hydrology Award, the International Desalination Associations prize, The Trever Kletz award, and fellowships of the National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers.
