Development of an intuitive river-pollution index for prioritizing water quality management alternatives

This paper describes methodological development of an intuitive river-pollution index (RPI) to allow assessment of priorities for water quality management in a river basin. The proposed RPI improves upon existing approaches as it is directly linked to water quality criteria and designated water uses, and reflects the importance of different water uses in a given reach. The RPI ranges from 1 (ideal water quality) to 5 (worst water quality) for …