Water quality situation of the Tha Chin river and the riverbank community’s understanding

Abstract

© 2019 Technoscience Publications. All rights reserved. The Tha Chin River is a branch river of the Chaophraya River, which is one of the four main rivers in the central area of Thailand. Currently, the Tha Chin River is experiencing serious problems regarding water quality. Our study was carried out to analyse the river quality status, classify the health of the river according to Water Quality Index (WQI) and assess the riverbank community’s understanding of the Tha Chin River water quality. The results indicated that the water quality in the estuary of the Tha Chin River has been seriously polluted. In addition, the results also found that the WQI of the wet period was significantly lower than that of the dry period at p-value < 0.05. While the results from the riverbank community’s understanding assessment revealed that they feel the water quality in this river is still good, especially in the upstream and the midstream. Therefore, the assessed water quality according to WQI method showed that the riverbank community had a misunderstanding of the water quality of the Tha Chin River.