Vol.:(0123456789) Environment, Development and Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00651-y 1 3 Application of AHP‑based water quality index for quality monitoring of peri‑urban watershed Koushani Sarkar 1  · Mrinmoy Majumder 1 Received: 8 April 2019 / Accepted: 19 February 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Conventional methods of determination of water quality index are main and popular approach to indicate surface water quality status. The present study tried to endeavor a unique index method which will be benefcial for any water quality parameters irrespec- tive of places and water uses making calculation easy and less complex. In the present study, eight sampling stations and seven physiochemical parameters were selected based on citation frequency. Multi-criteria decision-making technique such as analytical hierarchical process was taken into account to determine weights of each selected parameter along with measuring attractiveness by a categorical based evaluation technique to validate the result. National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index was also used to compare results from new methodology with the results from existing conventional technique. Analytical hierar- chical process showed SP5 is more afected than other stations which are similar to result from conventional method where both outcomes fall in the same range though values are diferent. It can be concluded that using multi-criteria decision-making techniques in water quality calculation is signifcant as it gives defnite values with more accuracy and less efort making the process simple and less complex where diferent types of water use can be considered. Development of water quality index will be more accurate with increasing number of sampling stations, monthly variation of data set, continuous monitoring consid- ering other conventional methods and multi-criteria decision-making techniques. Keywords WQI · AHP · MCDM · Weights · Tripura Abbreviation WQI Water quality index NSFWQI National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index OWQI Oregon Water Quality Index CCME WQI Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index MCDM Multi-criteria decision-making methods * Koushani Sarkar shreya.srkr78@gmail.com Mrinmoy Majumder mmajumder15@gmail.com 1 School of Hydro Informatics Engineering (Civil Engineering), National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura, India