Vulnerability assessment of urban waterbodies based on WRASTIC model

Globally, urban waterbodies are continually degrading due to the stresses from both natural and man-made changes. The vulnerability of the water resources system is directly impacted by various threats other than population expansion, such as changes in land use, socio-economic development, and climate change and their sustainability is often challenging. Importance of the natural balance restoration becomes crucial, which would lead to a sustainable development. It is necessary to analyze the environmental deviations in a catchment and their amplitude and decide where one may contribute. This study focuses on assessing the pollution risk index of the urban waterbodies by developing an appropriate extension of WRASTIC (wastewater, recreation, agriculture, size of the watershed, transportation, industrial, and vegetation cover) namely, WRASTIC-HI (WRASTIC-Hazard Index), a novel multi-criteria analysis for identifying potential sources and degree of contamination. The vulnerability assessment of the Upper Lake of city Bhopal to contamination has been computed using WRASTIC-HI and the result indicated that the catchment is at high risk with a high score (71) which is entitled to a three-year waiver illustrating that if the threats continue to increase in and around the catchment, the lake will sooner face more risk. The proposed technique makes use of open-source data as well as field surveys, making it a highly helpful tool for evaluating ecosystems with little time and expense and supporting planners, managers, and administrators for sustainable planning and decision-making with no need for complex computations or the collection of exhaustive scientific data.