Water Qual Expo Health (2013) 5:11–29 DOI 10.1007/s12403-012-0083-x Determination of Land Use Stress on Drinking Water Quality in Tiruchirappalli, India Using Derived Indices Rajendran Vidyalakshmi · Balan Brindha · Panneer Selvam Benedict Roosvelt · Sundharam Rajakumar · Marimuthu Prashanthi Devi Received: 4 July 2012 / Revised: 17 December 2012 / Accepted: 19 December 2012 / Published online: 23 January 2013 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Drinking Water Quality is a powerful environ- mental determinant of human health, especially for children. The present study is undertaken to assess the drinking wa- ter quality in schools of Tiruchirappalli region and to esti- mate the impact of land use stress on water quality. Drink- ing water samples have been collected from 102 schools of Tiruchirappalli during October 2011. The physico-chemical and microbial parameters of the drinking water were ana- lyzed. The drinking Water Quality Index has been derived for the estimated parameters and the water is assessed as Ex- cellent, Good, Medium, Poor, and Very Poor. The estimated DWQI shows that more samples fall under very poor (68) and bad category (22) and one infers that around 83 percent of the water samples were unsuitable for drinking purposes, 12 percent of the samples shows moderate water quality and only 5 percent of samples was observed to be suitable for drinking purposes. Based on the derived DWQI a unique symbol map was prepared. Land use/land cover map was de- rived for the study area using IRS LISS III images acquired during 2009. The DWQI map was superimposed on the land use/land cover map to identify the problem areas and the ex- tent of deterioration. Through this study the land use stress R. Vidyalakshmi ( ) · B. Brindha · P.S. Benedict Roosvelt Department of Environmental Management, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620024, Tamil Nadu, India e-mail: vidyalakshmi07@gmail.com S. Rajakumar · M. Prashanthi Devi Department of Marine Biotechnology, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620024, Tamil Nadu, India S. Rajakumar e-mail: kodairaj@gmail.com M. Prashanthi Devi e-mail: prashanthidevi@gmail.com on water quality can be quantified and appropriate recom- mendations may be suggested to the school authorities for the proper management of water quality so as to sustain a healthy life of the children. Keywords Water quality · Drinking water quality index · Land use/land cover stress Introduction Due to rapidly changing environmental conditions, the nat- ural resources such as water air and soil are facing a large number of threats by natural and anthropogenic sources both qualitatively and quantitatively. Since water has always been an important life sustaining component for human beings and other organisms, the quality of drinking water has be- come an issue of concern for human health in developing and developed countries worldwide. Provision of qualitative drinking water is an important precondition for the improve- ment of the life quality. In this regard the WHO proposes many regulation guidelines and recommendations in order to realize the human right to access adequate and safe drink- ing water independently of the stage of development and so- cial and economic conditions. Water Quality Index The Water Quality Index (WQI) is a single number that ex- presses water quality by aggregating the measurements of water quality parameters such as physiochemical and bio- logical parameters. The overall quality of the water will be given a score, the higher score alludes to better water quality (Excellent, Good) and lower score to degraded water quality (Bad, Very Poor) and the average score to moderate water quality. The index is a useful tool to express the water qual-