Sengupta, M. and Dalwani, R. (Editors).

2008
Proceedings of Taal2007: The 12
th
World Lake Conference: 1-6

Biological Monitoring of Water Quality in India Needs and Constraints

R.C. Trivedi, R.M. Bhardwaj and Sanjeev Agrawal,
Central Pollution Control Board, East Arjun Nagar, Delhi 110032
Email: adrct.cpcb@nic.in


ABSTRACT

Fast urbanization and industrialization in India is leading to steep increase in waste generation. The
waste management is not adequately addressed resulting in large part of uncollected and untreated
wastes getting into water courses. This situation coupled with steep increase in water demand leading to
degradation of water quality. Indias water stressed economy is slowly becoming a water scarce
economy. The maintenance of water quality is a Herculean task which bacons us. To meet these
challenges, the country has taken up several positive steps through formulation of national policies and
regulatory frameworks, its implementation along with a well designed water quality monitoring system
including data analysis and dissemination. Due to growing diversity of pollutants, it is increasingly
becoming difficult to measure all the pollutants. Many of the pollutants which are not regularly
monitored may be very important due to their environmental significance. In such situation
biomonitoring is becoming more important. In applying biomonitoring in the water quality monitoring
program, the major constraint was specialized knowledge required to identify the organisms exist in
water. Such knowledge was not available with the monitoring agencies. To overcome such problem
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which is an apex body for management of water quality in the
country and maintaining a well designed network of water quality monitoring, initiated a program to
develop methods for biological assessment of water quality in Dutch collaborated project. The outcome
of the project was a well designed integrated method of water quality assessment including biological
and chemical parameters. This paper attempts to highlight the method and its applicability in different
parts of the country and different types of water bodies.



INTRODUCTION

Water is most essential but scarce resource in our
country. Presently the quality & the availability of
the fresh water resources is the most pressing of the
many environmental challenges on the national
horizon. The stress on water resources is from
multiple sources and the impacts can take diverse
forms. Geometric increase in population coupled
with rapid urbanization, industrialization and
agricultural development has resulted in high impact
on quality and quantity of water in our country. The
situation warrants immediate reprisal through
radically improved water resource and water quality
management strategies. In order to achieve sustainable
economic growth, the requirement of water
management strategy includes interrelated programs,
policies, and legislation designed to protect and
improve aquatic environment. Rational planning of
any water quality management program required
adequate knowledge on nature and magnitude of
water quality degradation. To acquire such
knowledge a well designed water quality monitoring
is essential. Monitoring supports the implementation
of water quality management program by providing
feedback on the status of aquatic resources and the
performance of policies, programs, and legislation.



Central Pollution Control Boards Present Water
Quality Monitoring Program

The national water quality-monitoring network is
operated under a three-tier program i.e. Global
Environment Monitoring System (GEMS),
Monitoring of Indian National Aquatic Resources
System (MINARS) and State Level Programs. CPCB
in collaboration with concerned SPCBs/PCCs
established a nationwide network of water quality
monitoring comprising 1019 stations in 27 States and
6 Union Territories. The monitoring is done on
monthly or quarterly basis in surface waters and
twice in a year for ground water. The monitoring
network covers 200 Rivers, 60 Lakes, 5 Tanks, 3
Ponds, 3 Creeks, 13 Canals, 17 Drains and 321 Wells.
Among the 1019 stations, 592 are on rivers, 65 on
lakes, 17 on drains, 13 on canals, 5 on tanks, 3 on
creeks, 3 on ponds and 321 are groundwater stations.
Water samples are being analysed for 28 parameters
consisting of 9 core parameters and 19 other physico-
chemical and bacteriological parameters apart from
the field observations. Besides this, 9 trace metals
and 22 pesticides are also analysed in selected
samples. Biomonitoring is also carried out on
specific locations. In view of limited resources,
limited numbers of sample are analysed once in a
year for micro pollutants (Toxic Metals & POPs) to
assess the water quality. The water quality data are
reported in Water Quality Status Year Book.

Need for Biomonitoring in India?

Legal and Policy Considerations

Water pollution in India is regulated under the
provisions of Water (Prevention and Control of
Pollution) Act, 1974. The pollution control boards
formed under the Act are responsible for its
implementation in the country. The basic objective of
the Act as stated in its preamble is to maintain and
restore the wholesomeness of the aquatic resources in
the country. Thus, the long term objectives for
pollution control boards must essentially be that all
natural waters should be free fromharmful effects to
man and aquatic environment caused by discharges.
This means that wholesome ecological systems should
be maintained in the aquatic systems of India. In order
to advance towards fulfilment of this goal, pollution
control boards must strive to minimize the adverse
effects that discharges may cause in water bodies. Most
of the policy documents and legal provisions on
water resources protection and management in India
emphasize protection of human health and living
creatures. Water Act, 1974 emphasizes
wholesomeness and under its sections stresses on
protection of human health and living creatures.
Similarly, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
emphasizes protection of environment including air,
water, land, living creatures and their relationships. The
Policy Statement for Abatement of Pollution (1992)
and National Conservation Strategy and Policy
Statement on Environment and Development, 1992
stresses on protection of wildlife and ecosystems.
Similarly, recently notified National Environment
Policy, 2006 also strongly emphasizes on protection of
wildlife, fisheries and other living being. Even the
National Water Policy, 2002 of Ministry of Water
Resources also emphasized on ecological requirement
of water and felt the need for ecological flows in
different rivers in the country. All the above mentioned
facts reveals that protection of aquatic life is an
important intention under the law and policies of the
government of India and thus biological monitoring is
essential in order to ensure such a goal.

Increasing Diversity of Pollution

Fast economic growth, urbanization, industrialization
and agricultural advancement in India led to increase
in pollutants diversity. Some of the facts related to
urban, industrial and agricultural growth are
presented below:

Urbanization

The growth of urban population becomes very steep
in the last 3-4 decades (Figure 1). It is predicted that
the growth would be much more steeper in future.

Industrialization

Soon after independence, the Government of India
embarked upon a planned approach of socio-
economic development for self-reliance. There was a
tremendous euphoria for rapid economic growth
using modern technological development through the
process of massive industrialization of the country,
especially the development of heavy and basic
industries. It was important that the industries
continue to get high priority.


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20
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Y E A R


Figure 1: Increase in Urban Population


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Industrial production increased at an average
rate of 7.8% in the decade following 1955. This rate
of growth fell to 4.0% in the decade 1966-75.
Aggregate industrial output has increased to five
folds over a period of 39 years since the
independence giving a compound rate of growth 6%.
This growth rate was tried to maintain till recently.
This has resulted in fast industrialization of the
country. India ranks today amongst the first 10
industrial nations of the world. The Indian economy
has never been in such good shape as it is now with
the liberalization measures initiated in 1991 become
effective. The continued impressive performance of
the agricultural sector and a significant improvement
in the industrial production since September 1993
have enabled the rate of growth of the Gross
Domestic Product (GPD) rise from 0.8 percent in
1991-92 to 5.1 percent in 1992-93, 5 percent in 1993-
94, 6.3 percent in 1994-95, seven percent in 1995-96,
7.5 percent in 1996-97, which has continuously
increased to 9 percent in 2006-07.

Agriculture

India ranks second worldwide in farm output.
Agriculture and allied sectors accounted for 18.6% of
the GDP in 2005, employed 60% of the total
workforce and despite a steady decline of its share in
the GDP, is still the largest economic sector and
plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic
development of India. Yield per unit area of all crops
have grown since 1950, due to several efforts to
augment the agricultural production. Apart from
massive efforts to augment irrigation potential in the
country, use of chemicals has also grown steeply. For
example: fertilizer consumption has grown from 0.3
million tonnes/year in 1960 to 20.3 million tonnes/
year in 2006 (68 times increase in 46 years),
pesticides consumption has grown from 2353
tonne/year in 1955 to 75418 tonnes/year in 1990.

Water Availability

Although India is wettest country in the world, with
annual average rainfall of 1170 mm, still water is a
scarce commodity. This is mainly due to highly
uneven distribution of rainfall with time and space.
With fast industrialization and urbanization the
demand of water is steeply increasing. This is leading
to severe problem of water availability in several part
of the country. The water scarcity is very important
cause of water quality problems.

Complexity of Chemicals in Water

Due to fast economic growth, urbanization,
industrialization and agricultural development
followed by water scarcity, a large number of
chemicals are getting into the environment.
Recognition is growing that in order to achieve and
maintain water quality objectives, pollution control
boards lack, in many cases, an essential tool: the ability
to assess the level and cause of adverse environment
effects due to discharges of pollution, also to assess the
magnitude and persistence of the toxic effects of
effluents on receiving waters. Chemicals can, and do,
reach the aquatic environment by many routes i.e.
discharge from the industries, sewage, storm water, and
urban and industrial runoffs, leaching from the soils,
agricultural areas and atmospheric deposition. The
effluents can be extremely complex in quality and
individual in their properties. Several hundreds or
thousands of chemical may be discharged in an
industrial or urban effluent. While a limited number of
these compounds are well known chemical products
and reactants used in industrial processes, many are
unintended by-products which are far less likely to be
identified. Although many of these chemicals and by-
products are present as trace pollutants they may still
be toxic even in low concentrations.
This has compounded the complexity in water
quality monitoring and management strategies. A
ppredominant argument to apply bio-monitoring
technique in pollution control is the incompleteness of
the analytical techniques. This relates to the
impossibility to develop analytical methods for each
pollutants as well as to the unavailability in practice of
complete series of instruments covering all the
polluting substances. Furthermore, simple techniques
for determining what fraction of the contaminant is
actually biologically active, are not available. Also
technical know how to interpret all the results may not
be sufficiently available. Therefore, although
monitoring chemical variables is often considered to be
simple, in many cases it is not simple and effective and
certainly not cheap. The only option to overcome such
complexity is use of biological system to monitor water
quality. Considering these arguments selective bio-
monitoring is a most efficient method for pollution
control and measurement on environment.

Biomonitoring

Biomonitoring relies on the fact that environmental
stresses will cause change in the physical and chemical
environment of the water and that those changes will
disrupt the ecological balance of the system. Thus, by
measuring the extent of the ecological upset, the
severity of the impact can be estimated.
The species most commonly used for the
investigation of water quality are the larger and more
easily visible invertebrate animals which colonize the
substrata of all the rivers. Such animals are collectively
referred as macro-invertebrates, of which the main
constituents are young aquatic stage of certain insects.
Within this bottomdwelling community, the sensitivity
and tolerance to pollution varies considerably from
species to species. Thus, for example, some species are
very sensitive to reduction in dissolved oxygen and
will not be found in the area where oxygen levels are

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not consistently high. On the other hand, some species
are very tolerant in this respect. Like-wise some
species require particular physical conditions in order
to survive and thrive e.g. clean gravel and clean surface
interstices. Any change in conditions such as silting
will significantly reduce or even completely eliminate
such species. This is a characteristic feature of polluted
environments where reduction in overall community
diversity of tolerant species will be observed. Thus, the
quality of water can be assessed by means of a field
inspection of the macroinvertebrate communities
inhabiting the substratum, noting the relative
proportions of sensitive, less sensitive, tolerant and
most tolerant species and comparing the result found
with the expected ratios from unpolluted habitats of a
similar type.
There are several methods of assessing water
quality using biological structure (Trivedi 1981). Each
method has its own particular application, advantages
and disadvantages. These are summarized in the table 1,
fromwhich it will be seen that a combination of both
techniques is preferable to either alone.
Physico-chemical methods measure the
concentration of pollutants only at the time of sampling
and can not detect the pollutants discharges that are
either irregular or surreptitious. These are also
relatively expensive in terms of the equipment needed
and number of analyses required to achieve results with
a comparable reliability to those achieved by biological
surveillance. Their particular advantage is that the
analyses involves are precise, discriminating and
quantitative. The physico-chemical methods provide
such data as required by the Pollution Control Boards
for assessment of compliance with prescribed standards.
On the other hand, the biological methods could
be useful for such assessing the overall impact of
pollutants on the ecosystems. Such impact are
generally independant of the time(s) during which the
pollutants were discharged and therefore this approach
could help in integrated assessment of the water quality.
This is an important advantage of biological techniques.
They do, however, suffer from the limitation of being
poor in terms of their precision and discrimination of
the pollutants involved (Table 1).

Options for Biomonitoring

There are as many methods as the number of scientific
groups working on biomonitoring in the world. The
details of these methods are widely referred in the
literature. Thus it becomes difficult to select
appropriate method for a situation. In order to find
suitable method for Indian conditions and within
capability of Indian regulatory authorities, Central
Pollution Control Board has carried out a three year
pilot study on the Yamuna river under Indo-Dutch
collaborative project and developed a method for
evaluation of water quality combining both the
chemical and biological evaluation to make it more
scientific and useful for the pollution control agencies
in India. The method integrates the individual
parameters in an index. The methodology developed
involves large number of physico-chemical
measurements, although it has a flexibility to be used
even if limited parameters of local importance are
measured. For any beginner measurement of all the
parameters used in the above methodology may be
difficult. The complete details of the methodology is
available elsewhere (de Kruijf, de Zwart and Trivedi,
1992, Trivedi, de Zwart & de Kruijf, 1993, de Zwart &
Trivedi, 1995). A brief description is provided below:

The Yardstick:

The adopted river water quality yardstick is based on
measured chemical, bacteriological and ecological
data. The individual measurement are integrated to a
number of indices which are graphically presented in
a so called AMOEBA - figure. The AMOEBA
(abbreviation for a method of ecological and
biological assessment) depicts the actual quality
status, together with the deviation from target
objectives. The individual indices are related to
identifiable aspects of pollution, and therefore they
can be used for water quality management. For the
time being 8 different indices are specified:


Table 1. Advantage & Disadvantage of different water quality monitoring techniques.

Realm
Performance of chemical
monitoring
Performance of biological
monitoring
Prcision (i.e. polluant concentration assessment) Good Poor
Discrimination (what kind of pollution) Good Poor
Reliability (how representative is a single or a limited number
of samples)
Poor Good
Measure of ecological effects No Yes
Cost Relatively high Relatively low
Pollution Load (strain) Indices:
Bacterial Pollution Index (BPI)
The Nutrient Pollution Index (NPI)
The Organic Pollution Index (OPI)
The Industrial Pollution Index (IPI)
The Pesticide Pollution Index (PPI)

Effect (stress) Indices:
The Benthic Saprobity Index (BSI)
The Biological Diversity Index (BDI)
The Production Respiration Index (PRI)

Each of these indices are derived from a set of one or
more water quality monitoring parameters which may
vary according to regional requirements. The details of
the methodology is described elsewhere (Trivedi et al
1993, de Zwart and Trivedi, 1995)

Amoeba Presentation

All the eight individual indices as explained earlier are
expressed on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 indicates
the worst imaginable condition and 100 stands for a
totally natural environment. The target level does not
necessarily be 100 since compromise between
development and environmental protection leads to the
acceptance of some degree of deterioration. For each
index a different target value may be selected,
depending on local conditions. The targeted values of
each individual indices is rescaled so as to fall on a
circle, "AMOEBA" (Ten Brink et al 1991). Thus one
can immediately see which index is falling short of or
exceeding the target.
The sector size can also vary according to the
weightage of the corresponding index, and may
depends on the local regional or national values and
views. For the time being the weightage of the indices
are kept equal.


Application of Amoeba in Water Pollution Control:

Rational formulation of any pollution control program
for a water body needs to define water quality
objectives (target) for that water body in a sound
scientific manner. These objectives are used as
yardstick to identify the areas in need of restoration,
extent of pollution control needed, prioritization of
pollution control programme and effectiveness of
pollution control efforts. Using the Yamuna River's 3
years data on the water quality the indices are
calculated and presented in the "AMOEBA" form. The
suggested target values for NPI, OPI, IPI, PPI, BSI,
BDI and PRI are 90, 80, 60, 80, 80, 70, 70 and 80
respectively. These targets are suggested based on
various water quality objectives identified by the
CPCB under its various pollution control programmes.
An example of how the proposed yardstick can be
applied in the field of pollution control is given in
Table 2. This yardstick so developed is proposed to be
validated in other river systems of India during the year
1992-93.If found suitable the yardstick is proposed to
be introduced in the legislative framework of pollution
control in India.

Biological Mapping of Water Bodies

Water quality mapping is the most important exercise
for the Pollution Control Boards to establish
magnitude of water quality degradation in different
water bodies in the country. It helps in the
identification of water bodies which are in need of
improvement, as well as the extent of pollution
control needed. It also helps in formulation of
pollution control programs in a rational manner.
Giving a proper advise to Central and State
Government in various pollution control policies is
also supported by such mapping activities. CPCB has
attempted mapping of some of the rivers in the
country using biological information.

Table 2. Example of Application of Yardstick in Pollution Control.

Stretch Value not fulfilling the
target
Major cause for
degradation
Action Required
Palla to Wazirabad BPI Faecal coliform Control of sewage from drain
no.8 in Haryana
Hindon fromGhaziabad to
confluence with Yamuna
BPI, BSI, PRI, NPI, OPI,
PPI
Sewage and industrial
wastes
control of sewage and industrial
wastes fromGhaziabad
Wazirabad Barrage to
Okhla Barrage
BPI,NPI,OPI, PRI,BSI
and BDI
Sewage and industrial
wastes.
Control of sewage and industrial
waste of Delhi
Okhla Barrage to Chambal
Confluence
BPI, NPI, OPI, PRI, BSI,
AND BDI
Sewage and Industrial
wastes
Control of Shahadara Drain and
Mathura-agra drains
In the city limits of
Mathura, Agra and
downstreamof Delhi (20-
30 kmstretches)
BPI, NPI, PRI, OPI, BSI,
BDI
Sewage and industrial
wastes
Control of Shahadara and
Mathura Agra sewage inflows

5
Major Constraint in Implementation of
Biomonitoring

The yardstick methodology is now validated on
many water bodies in the country. Now 14 states
have adopted the biomonitoring in their monitoring
programme. However, many state are not able to
adopt it or carry it on regular basis due to the
following main constraints:
1. Lack of taxonomic skill in many State
Pollution Control Boards;
2. Lack of manpower;
3. Lack of resources;
4. Lack of awareness.

CONCLUSION

Biomonitoring has several advantages. It can help in
evaluation of environmental damage caused by an
activity. is important to use biomonitoring techniques
in environment impact assessment. It is less
expensive, more informative and convincing.
Biomonitoring Results Can be Used to:
- identify environmental problems.
- establish priorities for pollution control efforts.
- set discharge limits for effluents.
- identify & implement appropriate control
measures.
- monitoring compliance with regulatory limits on
ecosystem degradation.

REFERENCES:

Trivedi R.C. (1981) Use of Diversity, Index in Evaluation
of water quality. Proceedings of the WHO workshop
on Biological Indicators & Indices on Environmental
Pollution. PROBES/6/1980-81. Central Pollution
Control Board, New Delhi.
Kruif, H.A.M. de, D. de, Zwart and Trivedi R.C. (1992)
Proceedings of the Indo-Dutch Workshop on Water
Quality Yardstick Development, October 29-31, New
Delhi, India. RIVM report no. 768602009, RIVM,
Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
Trivedi, R.C., Zwart, D. de, Kruif H.A.S. de (1993)
Development and Application of Yardstick for Water
Quality Evaluation. The Science for Total
Environment Supplement 1993, part 2, Elsevier
Science Publishers B. V. Amsterdam.
Zwart, d. de and Trivedi R.C. (1995) Manual On Integrated
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802023003, RIVM, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
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Odum, H.T. 1957. Primary production measurement in
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