Assessment of water quality of Rawal Lake by long-time monitoring

Abstract

Water quality of rivers, natural lakes, and reservoirs in developing countries is being degraded because of the contaminated inflows. There is a serious need for appropriate water quality monitoring for future planning and management of clean water resources. Quality of water in Rawal Lake Pakistan has been investigated in this paper. Flows from the upstream of Rawal Lake and its surrounding villages are highly polluted. Lake water quality parameters like pH, turbidity, alkalinity, calcium, nitrite, sulfate, biological oxygen dissolved, dissolved oxygen, chloride, total dissolved solids (TDS), and coliforms were investigated. Samples of water from different locations of Korang River were collected and tested. Most of the data was collected by field sampling and field visits. However, long-term information was taken from different departments. Statistical parameters (standard deviation, maximum, minimum, mean, mode, kurtosis, skew, and Euclidean distance) of variables were determined. A distinct parameter based on the difference of the maximum value the variable and maximum allowable value of that variable defined by World Health Organization was used for analysis. Grouping and clustering of elements was made on the basis of this parameter. Trend of increasing or decreasing of values of variables over a long time was also taken into account for grouping the variables. It was concluded that the concentration of seven contaminants was higher as compared to the permissible limits under environmental standards. These variables need immediate attention. The environmentally bad conditions of Rawal Lake can only be rectified by appropriate lake environmental supervision, watershed management, and implementation of environmental legislation.

Analysis of Methodologies for Assessment of Urban Drainage Impacts in Lakes and Reservoirs

“…12,17]. Some papers [15,18,19,22] mention the presence of "human settlements" or "urban" use at the catchment; others [7,14,17] refer to the contribution of "domestic wastewater" or "urban sewage", but these sources of pollution are not characterized. Most of the work evaluated agriculture pollutants [e.g.…”

“…Diogo et al [15], Abrantes et al [18], Ghumman [19] and Shanley and Chalmers [22] mention the presence of "human settlements" or "urban" use at the catchment. Zhang et al [7], Bilaletdin et al [14] and Ma et al [17] refer to the contribution of "domestic wastewater" or "urban sewage".…”

Hydrological Modeling and Characterization of the Khanpur Watershed, Pakistan

“…The average maximum temperatures are 17.6‐40.1°C, whereas mean minimum temperatures are 2.1‐21.6°C. The highest temperature was recorded as 46.6°C in 2005 (Ghumman 2010). The meteorological stations near the study area are Murree and Islamabad and show average annual rainfalls of 1,748 and 1,175 mm, respectively.…”

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“…The soils formed over the shale are clayey while those developed over the sandstone are sandy loams to sandy clay loam (Shafiq et al 1997). Agriculture is practiced in small patches of land mainly as terrace cultivation (Ghumman 2010). scrub forests (xerophytic forests of thorny and small-leaved evergreen species) up to 1,000 to 1,200 m elevation and coniferous forests, pure and mixed with hardwood species, from 1,200 m elevation to the tree limit (Amjad et al 1996).…”