Methods for Determining the Water Quality Index in Developing Asian Countries: A Review

Abstract

Clean water quality is a problem, especially for developing countries in Asia. Their efforts to maximize various sectors to become a developed country, for example in industrial activities, result in negative environmental impacts, especially for water quality. The wastewater that is directly discharged into river bodies without any treatment causes river water quality to become increasingly worse. The water quality index (WQI) is one of the tools used to assess river water quality. There have been many studies that examined the river water quality in Asia, but there are still few studies that discuss the river water quality as a whole in Asia, especially for developing countries where industrial activities are massive. This study discussed the trends in river water quality in developing countries in Asia. The results obtained showed that most river water quality in Asia falls into the medium to poor category, even poor in some situations, especially in the areas with dense populations and in the areas around rivers which are full of domestic and industrial activities. For this reason, there is a need for a more advanced WQI assessment which is carried out using scientific analysis using fuzzy logic so that the WQI value can be more accurate and QGIS can provide broader information. There needs to be cooperation and good relations between the community, stakeholders and the government in an effort to overcome river pollution which will become even worse by providing stricter regulations, establishing proper water treatment so that industrial or domestic waste water does not directly enter water bodies, and create appropriate policies. Therefore, it is important to be able to develop a river water quality assessment system, such as WQI to be more accurate so that these actions can be carried out.