Models of water quality index for monitoring of available drinking bottled water consumed within Jalingo municipal

This study was carried out to develop a model of water quality index to be used for quality control of available bottled water consumed within Jalingo municipal. Six (6) different products of available bottled drinking water samples were obtained from Jalingo main market. The parameters of this bottled water were analyzed in the Environmental Laboratory of Taraba State Water Supply and Sewage Corporation (TAWASCO) Headquarters, Jalingo. Results of the analysis showed that values of temperature of all the six bottled water samples have exceeded the permissible value, but has no health implication, while results for turbidity, pH, Dissolved oxygen and electrical conductivity values were below the permissible limit. Results gotten from the analysis, through appropriate equations and the use of Minitab 19, were used to determine Water Quality Index (WQI) of the bottled water samples and it was observed that BW3 had a water quality status of excellent and BW2 and BW4 had good as the water quality status while BW1, BW2 and BW6 had water quality status as poor. The model equation has a reliability (R2) of 90.3% and error of 9.7%. The experimental values of the water quality index were compared with those from the model equation and the results showed there were very little errors ranging from 0.00 to 0.48; indicating that there was a significant agreement between the values of WQI obtained by experiments and the ones from model equation. Finally, it was concluded that, in terms of both water quality index/parameters, the various bottled water samples are safe and fit for consumption and the equation could be employed for quality control of the available bottled water consumed within the confined of this study