Godavari River Pollution & Use of Coconut Shell as Filter Media for Design of Dual Media Filters.

GODAVARI RIVER POLLUTION & USE OF COCONUT SHELL AS

FILTER MEDIA FOR DESIGN OF DUAL MEDIA FILTERS.

SHIRULE.P.A1, SONWANE.A.E2, PATHAK P.L3

1
Associate. Professor, Dept.of Civil Engineering, SSBT’s College of Engineering, Bhambori, Jalgaon, Maharastra
2,3
P.G. Student, SSBT;s COET, Jalgaon, Jalgaon , Maharastra
E-mail: pashirule@rediffmail.com, atulswne@gmail.com, stejal1@rediffmail.com

Abstract—The research and developmental activities for generating new water quality models provide a valuable source of
knowledge in the fields of water resources and environmental engineering. Due to limited water quality data and high cost of
water quality monitoring, the data based modeling approaches are being extensively used. This paper presents the forecasted
monthly values of water quality parameters viz., pH, Water Temperature and Dissolved Oxygen of River Godavari
especially in Ramkund region. As the puja materials such as coconut are extensively used in this region, we will analyze the
efficiency of coconut shells as filter media, as it is in large quantity in this area. As a solution, a Water Quality Index (WQI)
integrate the intricate analytical data and generates a single number stating the quality of a given water body. WQI is found
out for the specific purpose of ‘irrigation’.The Ramkund Region and its surrounding region are subjected to high river
pollution due to large bathing and other activites.Also the wastes of all the activities such as puja is generated .Peoples throw
large amount of materials such as flowers and coconut shells etc which are also responsible for pollution of river water. The
wastes such as coconut are in abundant quantity,which is the main problem regarding pollution.One of the remedial measure
regarding this is use of these shells as a filter media and design the dual media filters.The papers also deals with the
effectiveness of dual media filter using coconut shell as filter media.

Keywords-pH,Turbidity,Hardness,BOD,COD,WQI, Dualmedia filters.

I. INTRODUCTION monitoring of water quality to evaluate the

production capacity.
Nashik city is situated on the banks of river Godavari
and its tributaries namely Nasardi, Waghadi, Darna II. AREA OF STUDY AND OBJECTIVES
and Waldevi. On the upstream of city Gangapur,
darna, Alandi, Kashyapi and Gautami Godavari dams The area of study is around ramkund region of
are constructed on Godavari and its tributaries. Godavari river and its sourrounding area. Sample
Nashik city is a pilgrimage collecting points are established in and around
place for the peoples of the country, the city hosts ramkund region.The samples are collected from
kumbh mela and many rituals throughout the year.. It following points.
rises in the Sahayadri hills, in Maharastra state and it a. Near Victoria Bridge.
reaches Andhra Pradesh receiving water from the b. Ramkund
Manjira, the Pranahita (which itself is itself formed c. Goda kapila sangam
by the confluence of the three rivers viz., the Wardha, d. Dasak.
the Painganga and the Wainganga); the Mannair, the The main objectives are,
Indravathi and the Sabari. Nasik is one of the major
emerging cities of consists of the water quality 1. To Evaluate the temporal and spatial
monitoring stations of Ramkund and surrounding variations of water quality at all collecting
region of river Godavari in Nashik. The portion of points.
river Godavari in the NMC region is being subjected
to the high intensity of pollution due to the non 2. Checking quality of water and its pollution
awareness of peoples. And also direct disposal of extent on basis of following parameters
sewage water in the river. The waste from the
industrial area is also disposed in the tributaries such pH
as Nasardi, Waghadi which pollute the river.It is well
known that clean water is absolutely essential for a. Turbidity
several purposes for healthy living. Rivers are the b. Hardness
most important natural resource for human c. BOD
development but it is being polluted by indiscriminate d. COD
disposal of sewage, industrial waste and plethora of
human activities, which affects its physicochemical
and microbiological quality. Increasing problem of
deterioration of river water quality, it is necessary to

International Journal of Advanced Technology in Civil Engineering, ISSN: 2231 –5721, Volume-2, Issue-1, 2013
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 Godavari River Pollution & Use of Coconut Shell as Filter Media for Design of Dual Media Filters.

fine sand media is the increase in sludge storage

capacity in the filter bed.

Table I:- Sampling locations3. To utilize the

wastes mainly coconut shells as a filter media
and design of dual media filter.

IV. DUAL MEDIA FILTER

These filters were brought into practice during

the decade 1960-1970,but in India it is not much
used. It is also called as mixed media filters as
two or more different filter media are used in the
filter. The size of filter media is in the
progressive decrease in size of particles.
V. WATER QUALITY INDEX (WQI)
Further these filters have advantages over the
conventional upflow filters, these filters have
Water Quality Index is a form of average
flow direction in downward direction, and depth
derived by relating a group of variables to a
of filter bed is less as compared to other
common scale and combining them into a single
conventional filters. In addition to this there is
number. A WQI summarizes information by
no bouncy effect in these filters. These filters
combining several sub-indices of constituents
can be design for very high rate of filtration from
(quality variables) into a unvariate expression.
10000-20000 lph/m2. These filters may be the
Water Quality Index can bridge the gap between
cheapest as compared to others and may become
water quality monitoring and reporting methods.
popular provided local availability of filter
Water Quality Index =
media.In order to tackle some additional floc
Fig 1:- Schematic Diagram of dual media filter
loads as compared to clarified water through
conventional treatment unit,dual media filter
beds can be used. It consists of layer of coarse
media of crushed coconut shell at the top of the
fine sand in the filter beds.

A. Design Aspects of Dual Media Filters Where, Ci is the measured concentration, Si is

the water quality standard ‘n’ is the number of
The filter media consisits of crushed coconut evaluated pollutants ωi is the weighting
shell coarse media with effective size of 1.45- coefficient of the pollutant (parameter) ‘i’ in the
1.47 mm sieved through 2.3mm opening sieve river.
and retained on 1mmopening sieve. Table II-Grades and classification of water
Abbreviations such as IEEE, SI, MKS, CGS, sc, Quality Index
dc, and rms do not have to be defined. Do not
use abbreviations in the title or heads unless they
are unavoidable.

B. Theory Behind the dual media filter

The theoretical aspects in design of dual media

filter or multimedia filter is that the dual media
filter with use of coarse size media at the top of
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 Godavari River Pollution & Use of Coconut Shell as Filter Media for Design of Dual Media Filters.

VI.DISCUSSIONS

As we can see that the water quality index for

the Godavari river in NMC area is quite severe
and needs urgent attention.The pollution sources
which causes pollution can easily be minimized
and controlled.The waste minimization at the
selected site can effectively be used in proper
way as filter media as discussed. Proper zoning
and proper sewage and industrial waste disposal
is the need of time. Proper implementation of
rules regarding pollution control is to be done
which should also include the proper testing of
effluents and waste of industries.

REFERENCES

[1] Abbasi S.A., “Water Quality Indices — State of the Art", Centre
for Pollution Control and Energy Technology, Pondicherry
University.

[2] Curtis Cude, "Oregon Water Quality Index Summary Report:

Water Years 1992-200l", Oregon DEQ, Laboratory Division,
Water Quality Monitoring Section.

[3] Bansal, P.C., 2004, Water Management in India, New Delhi:

Concept Publishing Company.

[4] Chapter-6, “Understanding the Results", Northern Water Quality

Manual, EN_WQManual_Chapter6.

Results of pollution parameters after passing
through Designed Dual media filter using
coconut shell as filter media.
[5] David G. Smith, Robert J. Davies—Colley, and John W. Nagels
(February 2002), "Discussion: ‘Oregon Water Quality Index:
A Tool For Evaluating Water Quality Management’ by Curtis
G. Cude", Journal of the American Water Resources
Association, Vol.38, No.1

[6] Tian Y., Li H., Zhou Y. and Wang Y., "Determination of

Weighting Coefficients in Water Quality Index Method and
its application in river water quality evaluation”, The College
of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin
University, China.

VII. PERFORMANCE OF CRUSHED
COCONUT SHELL MEDIA
The crushed shell media is used for high rate
filtrationand was found satisfactory.There is no
sign of deterioration. The Water Quality Index
calculated for the three months as shown are as
follows
[7] Beamonte E., Bermudez J., Casino A., Veres E., "A Global
Stochastic Index for Water Quality: The Case Study of the
River Turia (Spain)", Valencia University, Spain.
[8] Beamonte E., Bermudez J., Casino A., Veres E., "A Statistical
Study of the Surface Water Quality in the Surroundings of
Valencia Town (Spain)", Valencia University, Spain.
[9] CPCB, Central Pollution Control Board, India. URL:
www.cpcb.nic.in/mar95ii.htm.
[10] ‘Assessment of water quality of Godavari River at
Nanded,Maharashtra and Rajamundry, Andhra Pradesh,’
Journal of Chemistry and Environment 12(1):65-68. .

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