Modified heavy metal Pollution index (m-HPI) for surface water Quality in river basins, India

India is bestowed with huge amount of surface water resources. However, India lacks the quality monitoring of surface water and comprehensive management for sustainable surface water development. A new approach for indexing has been proposed to represent pollution due to heavy metals in surface water. Heavy metal pollution indices (m-HPI) for 60 surface water samples in the peninsular stretch were evaluated during pre-drought, drought and post-drought condition. The Index will be represented by a Positive Index (PI) and a Negative Index (NI), where PI represents the level pollution exceeding the maximum desirable limit and NI reflects the index within the required limit. The PI is assigned as 0 when indicators are present below the detection limit or equal to the maximum required limit. However, the value calculated for NI could be 0 to −1 when the indicators are equal to or less than the suggested maximum desirable limit, and the value could be −1 when the indicators are present below the suggested detection limit. The spatiotemporal variation of water quality pattern was studied by the interpolation maps extracted from ArcGIS. The results are compared with WHO standard to validate the drinking water quality. The calculated indices indicated the suitability of water for domestic and irrigation purposes. The developed indexing system is user friendly, robust, flexible and may evaluate the index considering any water quality standard.