Assessment of the Present State and Future Fate of River Saraswati, India: Water Quality Indices and Forecast Models as Diagnostic and Management Tools

Abstract Water quality assessment is key to the conservation and management of rivers. River Saraswati, a distributary river Ganga, serves as lifeline many villages in district Hooghly West Bengal, India. As gradually dying due diverse man‐made pollution, ten water parameters two sampling spots (PR‐1 PR‐2) are monitored month‐wise from March 2017 February 2020, these compared with those reference pond. The index (WQI) determined for riverine pond based on Canadian Council Ministers Environment WQI (CCMEWQI) weighted arithmetic WQI, respectively. In addition actual observations, three different forecasting methods, exponential smoothing, autoregressive integrated moving average, artificial neural network, used predict next years. This study indicates that free CO 2 , dissolved oxygen, turbidity evaluate this river's anthropogenic stress health. forecasted results reflect precipitous degradation CCMEWQI PR‐2. Therefore, immediate intervention all stakeholders required adopt an comprehensive plan save utter obliteration.