Context:

surface water sources are the fundamental resource in any activity or development process as an axis of interest for their use. However, anthropogenic activities have deteriorated bodies of water, considerably altering their properties, physicochemical and microbiological characteristics, which are the fundamental indicators of contamination levels in the dynamics of water bodies. At an individual level, they only represent an idea of their concentration in the analyzed samples. Therefore, to assess the quality of the bed, these variables must be integrated through Quality Indicators and Contamination Indicators (WQI and WPI) in lotic, lentic, and underground systems.

Methodoly:

a bibliographic review was carried out in the Sciencedirect database and digital platform, using the phrase “water quality index and pollution index” as search criteria. This search pattern was applied to the keywords of the articles consulted. The most relevant documents of the last 10 years were selected, with which the review was performed.

Results:

the most common way to characterize water involves determining its physicochemical parameters and analyzing them against national or international maximum permissible values. This process transforms Water Quality Indices and Pollution Indices into useful methods with a simple and practical applications, helping to identify problems related to the concentration levels that vary in lotic, lentic, and underground bodies. This research presents the most frequently used WQIand WPI based on the bibliographic review, revealing that the countries where more research has been conducted are China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, and Indonesia.

Conclusions:

the water quality indices and contamination index have been repeatedly implemented in recent years in various countries around the world with the aim of evaluating the quality of both surface (rivers, lakes, seas) and groundwater (water streams). Similarly, new indices have been developed from some existing WQI.