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Abstract
Water quality of Al-Gharraf river, the largest branch of Tigris River south of Iraq, was evaluated by the National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index (NFS WQI) and the Heavy Metal Pollution Index (HPI) depending on 13 physical, chemical, and biological parameters of water quality measured monthly at ten stations on the river during 2015. The NSF-WQI range obtained for the sampling sites was 61–70 indicating a medium water quality. The HPI value was 98.6 slightly below the critical value for drinking water of 100, and the water quality in the upstream stations is better than downstream due to decrease in water and the accumulation of contaminants along the river. This study explains the significance of applying the water quality indices that show the aggregate impact of ecological factors in charge of water pollution of surface water and which permits translation of the monitoring data to assist the decision makers.
Highlights
Water is a substance of great environmental importance
dissolved oxygen (DO) is essential to aquatic life for respiration and most organisms have an ideal scope of DO
The results showed that the concentration of DO in Al-Gharraf river water rises in winter and decreases in summer and the ten stations have almost the same DO amount
Summary
Water is a substance of great environmental importance. It is described as ‘the liquid of life’ and has two measurements that are firmly connected, amount and quality. The decay of water quality became a serious threat beside the lack of effective monitoring network, especially in Al-Gharraf basin, which was characterized by a mainly agricultural land use of about 700,000 hectares (Saleh 2010; Al-Ansari 2011). Iraqi rivers water is under growing threats because of the increasing of industrial and agricultural pollution, salinity, hardness, water to decrease caused by climate change (limited rains in the north), the many dams which had been built in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and the bad planning used in irrigation (Al-Ansari 2013). The National Sanitation Foundation’s Water Quality Index (NSF-WQI), the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment’s Water Quality Index (CCME-WQI), the Oregon Water Quality Index (OWQI), and Heavy Metal Pollution Index (HPI) are well-known examples; the differences among WQIs are the statistical integration and interpretation of the resulting values (Alobaidy et al 2010; Lumb et al 2011; Abbasi and Abbasi 2012)
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