water Article Development of a Universal Water Quality Index (UWQI) for South African River Catchments Talent Diotrefe Banda * and Muthukrishnavellaisamy Kumarasamy Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College, Durban 4041, South Africa;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +27-15-291-1176 Received: 30 April 2020; Accepted: 26 May 2020; Published: 28 May 2020 Abstract: The assessment of water quality has turned to be an ultimate goal for most water resource and environmental stakeholders, with ever-increasing global consideration. Against this backdrop, various tools and water quality guidelines have been adopted worldwide to govern water quality deterioration and institute the sustainable use of water resources. Water quality impairment is mainly associated with a sudden increase in population and related proceedings, which include urbanization, industrialization and agricultural production, among others. Such socio-economic activities accelerate water contamination and cause pollution stress to the aquatic environment. Scientifically based water quality index (WQI) models are then essentially important to measure the degree of contamination and advise whether specific water resources require restoration and to what extent. Such comprehensive evaluations reflect the integrated impact of adverse parameter concentrations and assist in the prioritization of remedial actions. WQI is a simple, yet intelligible and systematically structured, indexing scale beneficial for communicating water quality data to non-technical individuals, policymakers and, more importantly, water scientists. The index number is normally presented as a relative scale ranging from zero (worst quality) to one hundred (best quality). WQIs simplify and streamline what would otherwise be impractical assignments, thus justifying the efforts of developing water quality indices (WQIs).