Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (Dec 2018)

EVALUATING WATER QUALITY INDEX OF AL HAMMAR MARSH, SOUTH OF IRAQ WITH THE APPLICATION OF GIS TECHNIQUE

  • NAWAR O. AL-MUSAWI,
  • SURA K. AL-OBAIDI,
  • FATIMA M. AL-RUBAIE

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 12
pp. 4118 – 4130

Abstract

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This study concerns the water quality index of the Al Hammar marsh. The water quality of station M1, also termed Al-Hamedy, located in the middle of the marsh and related to the Al-Basra governorate, was evaluated from 2011 to 2015, using 12 selected parameters. The parameters include pH, Phosphate (PO4), Nitrate (NO3), Magnesium (Mg), Calcium (Ca), Total hardness (TH), Sodium (Na), Sulphate (SO4), Chloride (Cl), Total dissolved solids (TDS), Alkalinity (Alk.) and Electrical conductivity (EC). The Arithmetic Weighted Index was employed to ascertain the water quality index (WQI) in the Al-Hammar marsh. The findings from this research have been linked to the ArcGIS 10.4.1 software, to produce layers that represent the nature of the spatial distribution of the WQIs, as coloured maps. The results revealed that the marsh quality fell below the class of poor water quality, and the marsh water was brackish due to the high concentration of totally dissolved solids flowing in from the estuaries of the feeding channels coming from the river Euphrates, as well as from the tidal phenomenon via river Shatt Al-Arab.

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