Water Quality Assessment and Identification of Pollution Risk in High-Altitude Saiful Muluk Lake, North East, Pakistan

摘要

This research is aimed at generating a baseline monitoring data at different sites of the high-altitude Saiful Muluk Lake, Pakistan. The strength of this study is the provision of a wide range of measured physicochemical parameters in the unique environment where water-monitoring data is still not available and will be helpful for future comparison. Water and sediment samples from Saiful Muluk Lake (upstream) and Kunhar River (downstream) were collected during April/June 2019 and analyzed for various physicochemical parameters and metal content. Generally, the lake water quality is found to be clean from chemical contamination but elevated levels of BOD indicate that the degradation process has started. However, the concentrations of metals were lower in water samples but minor enrichment was found in the lake and river sediments. The metals were present in the following order: Fe Na Zn Cr Ni Cu Co Pb As Cd indicating that the accumulation of metals in the sediment can affect the water chemistry of aquatic systems due to any physical or chemical process in the system. The metals can be released to overlying water and pose risk to human health and ecosystem. Moreover, during sample collection, we observed plastic debris along lake and river banks which can also be threatening for aquatic life and should be monitored in future studies along with metal speciation for the better assessment of toxicity.