Analysis of water quality parameters by hyperspectral imaging in Ganges River Babankumar Bansod 1 • Rangoli Singh 2 • Ritula Thakur 2 Received: 30 August 2017 / Revised: 25 December 2017 / Accepted: 4 January 2018 Ó Korean Spatial Information Society 2018 Abstract Optical dynamic properties of water have capacity to give a coherent outline of water quality, how- ever its exactness relies on the samples gathered from water bodies. This work was performed to make utilization of remotely detected information for recognizing water quality parameters in view of optical dynamic properties of water. Airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer new generation (AVIRIS-NG) was guided over the Ganges River Buxer, Bihar, India gathering hyperspectral band of information. The image taken from nearly 10 km of the Ganges River with sample and line numbers 731 and 3190 respectively, having 425 spectral bands between 380 and 2510 nm wavelength with 5 nm sampling. Water test from 17 areas of Ganges River were gathered and dissected. By the utilization of ground truth information and combination of spectral band got from hyperspectral imaging, different spectral indices were readied which are valuable in eval- uating chlorophyll-a, turbidity and aggregate phosphorus. The results show that the Pearson correlation between ground truth data and spectral ratio indices were stronger than the single spectral band. It is also clear that the various indices seem to associate with particular class of ground truth data. Spectral bands having wavelength 677, 702, 705, 671 and 742 nm are dominating the formation of spectral indices. The correlation and R 2 for each investi- gated parameter were greater than 0.6 and 0.5 representing to develop a good linear model. Keywords Spectral indices Á Hyperspectral image Á Eutrophication Á Spectroscopy 1 Introduction It is calculated that approximately 40% of total world population lives at the seaside and lagoon or waterway shores and this share is increasing day by day [1]. Coastal area and water bodies are believed to be the most delicate and fragile environments. Any alterations made by anthropogenic activity can jeopardize the abode of fish and other water creature. Anthropogenic activities have accel- erated the rate of water pollution in lake, river, ocean and reservoirs leading to a very serious problem of water sources called eutrophication. Eutrophication is the primary cause of deteriorating the water quality by increasing the amount of algae and sus- pended organic material. When deteriorated, increased quantity of algae results in odious smell and taste. Along with this, the microorganisms associated with eutrophica- tion may cause health troubles to end users. So it is very important to analyse the quality of water. This is rather problematic when analysing the water quality of large river where field measurement is time consuming, costly, labour intensive and has limited logistic. High Eutrophication is indicated by the high quantity of chlorophyll a, total sus- pended solid, total phosphorus, nitrogen and many other nutrients. The analysis of this parameter provides an insight of the level of eutrophication, quality of water and biotic & Babankumar Bansod csiobabankumar@gmail.com Rangoli Singh rangolisingh023@gmail.com Ritula Thakur ritula.thakur@gmail.com 1 Agrionics Department, CSIR-CSIO, Sector-30, Chandigarh, India 2 NITTTR, Chandigarh, Sector 26, Opposite Blind School, Chandigarh 160019, India 123 Spat. Inf. Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-018-0164-4