Pre and post flood variation in hydrochemistry of river Jhelum during Kashmir floods 2014

Flood situation (September 2014) in Jhelum River radically changed its water quality status from pre to post flood season due to both natural as well as anthropogenic sources. The aim of this study is to highlight the positive as well as negative consequences of catastrophic floods particularly the physico-chemical and heavy metal characteristics of river water. River Jhelum water samples were assessed for physico-chemical characteristics (pH, Temp. EC, Ca, Mg, N, P, K, Na, Cl and S) and heavy metal content (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Fe, Pb and Zn) in pre and post flood seasons at six sites along its whole stretch from Verinag to Baramulla. Two sampling sites each were selected in three different zones of the river viz, upstream, middle stream and downstream. Results from the study provides an insight that water quality gets drastically changed in post flood seasons and most of the quality parameters of water were recorded at elevated levels in post flood seasons except a few like pH. The elevated levels of quality parameters in post flood season can be attributed to inputs from both punctual and non punctual sources.