The Buriganga River, once the lifeline of metropolitan Dhaka city, has now been severly polluted by the uncontrolled sewerage effluent from the city. SWMC developed water quality models (WQM) the Buriganga-Sitalakhya river systems for a quantitative assessment of the present status of pollution and its impact for the dry season of 1994-95. These rivers were selected because of their flowing through two very populous and industrialized cities, Dhaka and Narayanganj. For setting up and calibration of the water quality models, SWMC carried out some pioneering activities, probably not yet done by any other authorities so far. These include:

Measurement of time varying Dissolved  Oxygen (DO), Temperature and Secchi depth at several locations in the river in specific interval from dawn to dusk to see the temporal variation of the parameters

Direct flow measurement (on the spot and time varying) in the major wastewater effluent khals/drains discharging into the rivers, e.g. the Dholai Khal, the DND Khal, Ispahani Khal, Chaktai Khal along with measurement of pollutant concentrations.

Review of the data and information showed that the Buriganga river is heavily polluted. The DO level within the 17 km reach of the Buriganga is alarmingly low; at some locations it even goes down to 0.1 mg/l during the dry season. It has been found that the Dholai Khal alone was contributing to the Buriganga an average BOD load of 30,000 kg/day and COD load of 42,000 kg/day.