Water Quality Index, Correlation and Regression Analysis in Temple Pond Water Study

This research article explains the prediction of parameters that mostly affect the water quality index by using correlation and regression analysis. This research work was carried out in January 2018 in 17 temple ponds of the holiest city Kanchipuram. The pond water samples were tested for 11 parameters: pH, dissolved oxygen, total hardness, calcium, magnesium, total dissolved solids, chloride, sulfate, total nitrogen, total phosphate, and iron. The calculated water quality index that varies from 202 to 387 indicates that the water is unfit for drinking purposes. This greater value is due to the total phosphate exceeding the limit. Correlation analysis indicates that WQI has a good correlation with total phosphate, total nitrate, and chloride (r = 0.956, 0.908, and 0.803). In regression analysis, WQI with total phosphate shows a greater R² value (0.914). The evaluation of experimental and expected values of the dissimilar water quality parameters reveals that the correlation and regression analysis are very useful for finding the parameter mostly affecting the water quality index.