WATER QUALITY MONITORING OF BAGMATI RIVER BASIN, KATHMANDU VALLEY
Date
2023-08-14
Authors
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Publisher
Amrit Campus
Abstract
The Bagmati River in the Kathmandu Valley flows along the core urban areas. The main aim
of the study was to estimate 14 parameters water pH (pH), total suspended solids (TSS), total
dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity (Turb), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen
demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), total phosphorus (TP), faceal coliform (FC), iron (Fe),
manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), chromium (Cr) and cadmium (Cd) to assess the water quality
of the Bagmati River. The surface water samples were collected from 11 sites in the Bagmati
River during the pre-monsoon season. The highest DO record was found at headwater
Sundarijal (8 mg/L) where 50% of the samples had DO less than 3 mg/L. Meanwhile, turbidity,
TSS, and TDS ranged from 3 to 600 NTU, 12 to 740 mg/L and 58 to 612 mg/L respectively.
All the samples were contaminated from the faceal coliforms. High BOD and COD were
observed in the much-populated core urban area due to wastewater and organic load. Similarly,
among 5 heavy metals tested Fe and Cu were only detected in the samples. Fe exceeds the
WHO limits while Cu is within the guidelines. Only 2 clusters were obtained from cluster
analysis in which C2 had a high value of all parameters except DO indicating towards polluted
station i.e BA09. Meanwhile, correlation analysis between BOD and COD with TP and Cu
defined wastewater and organic loads are the main sources for the high concentration of these
water quality parameters.
Description
Keywords
Water quality parameters, Bagmati River, wastewater TSS, TDS, turbidity, BOD, COD, DO