Published by Dr. Vidhya CHITTOOR VISWANATHAN, Impact Director at AquaSPE
What should be the indicators considered in the evaluation of the success of the Ganges clean up program in order to establish credibility of the utilization of public funds?
Hi Vidhya, that is a very complex question for there is no single set of answers and most will be relative. All I can say is that something can and must be done.
Published by Greg Marsh, BYKA Group
Partial indicators sufficient?
Yes, BOD, COD, TOC will give partial information about the success of Ganges clean up program and sometimes they might be misleading too.
1. Ganga is NOT subjected to pollution from organic load only.
2. Vast number of industries dispose effluents that contains toxic metals like Lead, Chromium, Mercury etc into Ganga. BOC, COD, TOC indicate very little or nothing about these toxic metals.
3. Same with pesticide load from agriculture.
4. Above all, Ganga is facing challenge to maintain adequate flows to sustain ecosystem. BOD, COD and TOC does convey nothing about this very vital information.
So, BOD, COD and TOC convey half information that might mislead the very success of any clean up program. (If the purpose is to offer loopholes for industries and corruption in the system to sustain and flourish, then only BOD, COD and TOC are sufficient).
Published by Harsha Jade Puttaswamy, Employee at Central Water Commission, MoWR, RD & GR, Government of India
A method of indication would simply be monitoring the health of the general public in direct contact with the environment local to the Ganges. And spend as much of the funding as possible on waste water treatment, policing discharge regulations and awareness of the threats involved to human health.
Published by kerry frost, Watering Pipe Ltd. - Director and innovator.
Grey water footprint
Dear Vidhya, have you considered applying the grey water footprint as an indicator of water pollution? The grey water footprint measures the volume of water required to assimilate the load of chemicals added to the water in a basin as a result of human activities. The grey water footprint in a basin can then be compared with the assimilation capacity in a river basin to estimate the water pollution level. See for all details the Water Footprint Assessment Manual: http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/WaterFootprintAssessmentManual. Warm regards, Arjen
Published by Arjen Hoekstra, RIP 1967-2019 - University of Twente - Professor water management
Of criteria to measure the success of the mission: the safety of aquatic measuring, the proportion of diarrhea among children, and stomach ailments, and tests of water purity
Published by Mustafa Nasr, CSSW Yemen - Hygiene promoter
Dear All, It is an important point, which needs serious thought. all the indicators as mentioned above by different participants in this Discussion, are fair enough. However for success of such River Cleaning Programme, one should not underestimate even the self-purification capabilities of water bodies. So the Dry Weather Flow in the River is also an important aspect, while looking for all the indicator qualities. All weather ecological flow of water needs to be considered to know the dilution effects for the pollutants, if any. Another important indicator may be the pollutants loads from different outfalls into the River. For all the Cities / Towns along the River Ganga of any other Major River in India, the task of establishing the Sewerage Network alongwith Sewage Treatment Plant might not be a feasible option immediately at this point of time. So all the Waste Outfalls / Drainage Channels leading to the River should be initiated as a points of Bioremediation, which may eventually grow the scope for reuse or recycle for different meaningful purposes. Finally as a whole the the pollutants loads to the Rivers might get reduced. Thanking All. Regards.
Published by Nripendra Sarma, PHED, Government of Assam, India
Col. Islam ul Haque
1. The physical , biological and chemical set of indicators will confirm credible clean up of Ganga River; like
a. The desired colour, pH , oder and taste are the ruling indicators which will determine the suitability of the physical parameter of the river water quality.
b. The EPA accepted levels of BOD, COD and DO limits/levels which are good enough for the survival of aquatic life.
2. The soundness of sustainable river water quality monitoring mechanisms in the post clean up operation will ensure the credible clean up operation.
3. The effectiveness and degree of community mobilization and participation will also indicate the clean up operation effectiveness and sustainability.
Published by Islam ul Haque, Ecological sustainability through environmental protection services ( Eco-STEPS) - Chairman
Landscape management indicators are necessary, as the condition and management of the landscape is directly correlated to the Ganges. And, if one just uses instream indicators, it does not provide information about what could be done, only if it is good, bad or somewhere between. "Smart" indicators are those that provide a basis and platform for improvements. Here is a mature system, but a more rudimentary process can be applied: https://prezi.com/pvx9r5dykawt/the-role-of-shared-governance/ A governance indicator should also be applied. If the issue is technical, social, political, ecological -so too should the indicators.
Published by Tim Gieseke, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC - President
Starting from organic carbons, DO and E.coli, and nutrients (N, P) should be considered further in improvement processes
For the water quality parameters, the answer (comments) from Bruno Peeters seems to be a good answer. BOD, DO and E.coli have been basic parameters for the river water quality especially with deteriorated water quality. After water quality improvement, e.g. BOD
For the indicators to control pollutant discharge, point sources especially from municipal wastewater as well as industry sources should be targeted. Pollutant discharge per capita (PDC) would be an important parameter for management and planning municipal wastewater pollutant discharges.
Published by Yoshi Tsuzuki
The first thing, first to do is to realize that pure drinkable water is the most precious natural resources we humans have on planet Earth but sadly the volume or percentage of pure drinkable water to the volume of our planet Earth is a mere 0.02%. Meaning that a misuse of such precious natural resources will only spell our doom. Use water wisely. Thank you.
Published by Francis Udisi, Earth Right Institute - Project Coordinator
Many excellent points raised about the efficacy of clean up program for Ganges. I believe one should consider the aquatic life development within the River basin stretch under consideration after clean up too. I am not sure whether the clean up programs are considering the impact of pollutants released from the sediments after or during clean up. As a significant amount of pollutants might be present in the deposited sediments in the river bed, they may tend to release in the water column above. I have never seen any report on sediment studies on Ganges. Would love to see how polluted the sediments are and how can they affect the overall clean up task by becoming a source/pool of pollutants.
Published by Amit Christian, Levapor India Private Limited
Indicators
This is a good question. I would suggest general groupings of indicators - socio-cultural, political, economic, and environmental. There are quite a few models that suggest different parameters within these general groupings. I can share a model developed by Aaron Wolf and his research group on a dam assessment project called IDAM. http://rivers.bee.oregonstate.edu/integrative-dam-assessment-modelling-idam
Although this was assessing dams, it is a good multifaceted model for river health assessment in general. Hope this helps!
Published by Jennifer Veilleux, Postdoctoral Associate Florida International University's Institute for Water & the Environment
Dear Vidhya Chittoor Vishwanathan, All the above comments and indications are totally right, of course. First populations needs to treat waste waters before returning to the river. It means a strong infrastructure in each village and town. Then, the river itself needs to be redesigned as on natural state, at least from place to place by large pièces of marshlands with certain kind of plants able to clean the waste water by biological process. Then river bed should be cleaned from its toxical mud. Then the river will blow a new life and change the human life through the natural self revival, much more than expected. Then, Tar Kovacs Systems company will bring a new type of boat and ships to navigate on rivers which provide no pollution at all and no eddy. We are already engaged with such programmes in Europe. I would be very pleased to work in India as we are already building a power plant for constant renewable energy in Gujarat.
Published by Stefan Tarkovacs, Tar Kovacs Systems Group - Founder & Chairman
A simple indicator showing the oxygen balance (demand supply) of a river would be dissolved oxygen (DO) at the water temperature (T). This can be measured quickly with a portable DO & T meter. Other objective indicators to characterize the oxygen demand (from organic and nitrogenous pollution) are total organic carbon (TOC) and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN). However these require sampling and lab analysis by qualified staff. A less objective but simple indicator could be biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) but this takes several days (standard: 5 days at 20 °C) and the results can vary a lot depending on the skills of the analysts. Additional indicators would be total heavy metals (THMe) and total suspended solids (TSS). However TSS will largely vary with weather conditions upstream (heavy rainfalls) and with water flow velocities.
Published by Bruno Peeters, managing director at Model Engineering
je pense que le Gange n'est pas plus pollué que les fleuves européens et bien d'autres fleuves de pays sur développés qui rejettent toute leur pollution chimique dedans. le premier travail à faire c'est l'assainissement. I think that Gange is not polluted more than the European rivers and many other rivers of countries on developed which reject all their chemical pollution inside. the first work to do it is the cleansing.
Program indicators
It depends on the content of the program as well as on the available sources of information.. Usually indicators are designed at the same time as the program and are embedeed it.
Regrads,
Frédéric
Published by Frederic de Hemptinne, The Sustainable Synergies Group - Principal consultant.
Control, CSTP and maintain discharge
Dear Vidhya Chittoor Vishwanathan,
I give some point for clean up the Ganga.
Published by Yogesh Kumar, JBS Enviro Pvt Ltd - Project Engineer
When talk about Ganga river cleanup, we should take up the work in sections WITH APPROPRIATE INVOLVEMENT OF THE RESIDENTS/ BENEFICIARIES AND ALL OTHERS VISITING THE RIVER, AT ALL PILGRIM PLACES. As regards indicators, an "UNINTERUPTED FLOW OF CLEAN WATER WITHOUT SUSPENDED MATTER" may be one.
Thomas Walder
The Swiss Modular Stepwise Procedure offers a set of recommended methods for the comprehensive analysis and assessment of watercourses. I highly recommend following Webpage and Documents: http://www.bafu.admin.ch/gewaesserschutz/01267/01269/01270/index.html?lang=en#sprungmarke3_6
But the more important question is :
Answered your question in a response above.
But here is the real deal. It is not possible to clean up the Ganges. If you have seen the volume of pollutants, sewage etc. that enter it right through its whatever 500 mile long journey - it is a big ganda nallah.
We have to stop dumping this stuff into it. No drainage should flow into rivers. It should be directed outwards (of cities) treated and even the sullage should not be dumped into rivers.
Published by Anuradha Kataria