Water Quality Assessment of the Bagmati River

Abstract

The Bagmati River meanders along a length of 29 km in Kathmandu valley and has been extremely polluted due to rapid and unplanned urbanization. This has been coupled with the lack of solid waste and waste water treatment facilities. In the recent years, parallel efforts have taken place to clean the River – the Bagmati River Basin Improvement Program (BRBIP), a Government of Nepal (GON) initiative, started in May 2014; and Bagmati River Cleanup Campaign, started in May 2013 as a volunteer initiative of collecting solid wastes from the river. To investigate the small-scale impacts of these efforts, water samples were collected at 10-different locations in the valley for monsoon (August 2019) and after monsoon (Dec 2019). This study focused on comparing key water quality parameters for these locations. These results were compared with those of 2011-2014. The study showed that for both the seasons, biological oxygen demand was reduced in all locations except at Sunderijal which increased slightly in monsoon whereas chemical oxygen demand was reduced in 8 out of 10 locations. E-coli count were higher in this sampling season than previously observed in most of the locations for both the seasons. The cleanup efforts must not limit to Bagmati River only but should continue to its tributaries also. The voluntary participation on cleaning the River has created substantial awareness to the people of Kathmandu valley on the river health and has put them into action. This shows that the voluntary approach is one of the best approaches for the river conservation.