Research on the Impact of Industrial Pollution on River Ganga: A Review

Abstract

River Ganga is considered sacred for providing life sustenance to the people of India. Anthropogenic activities, however, have generated huge transformations in the river ecosystem during the past few decades. Advancement of technology in the form of a rise in the number of industries and the subsequent discharge of untreated and semi treated wastes into the river has raised serious concern about the safe use of river water for drinking and other purposes. The river water pollution due to industrial wastes is one of the major concerns in most of the metropolitan cities nowadays. These wastes discharged from diverse industries entering the water system lead to changes in the physicochemical and biological properties of riverine ecology and may further lead to bioaccumulation and biomagnification in the bodies of aquatic organisms and hence can enter the food web. The exposure to such water bodies can result in diverse health disorders in the living organisms and can affect the aquatic diversity, as a whole it deteriorates the riverine ecosystem. The following review article presents the findings of the work carried out by the various researchers on the effect of industrial pollution on river Ganga.