Estimation of parameters of sources emitting gravitational waves (GWs) is a crucial step in extracting any physics or astrophysics following a GW detection. Direct measurement of the mass and spin angular momentum of black holes, putting constraints on departures from general relativity, are among the many interesting physics and astrophysics results that can be obtained following upcoming GW detections.

In this talk, we focus on the prospects of measurement of cosmological parameters like Hubble parameter and matter fraction of the universe. The traditional measurement of these parameters uses standard candles like supernovae to obtain a relationship between luminosity distance and cosmological redshift. The procedure relies crucially on the complex physics of electromagnetic sources and is potentially affected by the systematics of their calibration and detection. Gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences give us access to the luminosity distance without relying on the cosmic distance ladder. These sources can thus serve as standard sirens -- albeit for the input of redshift from electromagnetic observations, an entirely independent measurement of cosmological parameters can be made. We present the prospects of constraining these parameters with gravitational wave observations of binary black hole mergers using the second generation of ground-based detectors.