Lake UniSZA Water Quality Monitoring: Pollution Effects to The Aquatic Environment

Abstract

Lake is one of the complete ecosystems and source of freshwater itself. Lake serves as a habitat for aquatic plants and animals, including the microorganisms. Lake can either be formed naturally or manmade. Most formed lakes are from volcanic eruptions, or cave ruins and lakes are formed from the rainwater. Man-made lakes usually formed after mining activities, and many can be found all over the world. Water pollution, including lake pollution, is common worldwide. It can be from point-source or non-point source. Natural environmental factors can also contribute to the lake pollution. In this study, aquatic life has been found dead and the samples of both water and aquatic life were taken for analysis. Two types of analysis were conducted; in-situ sampling analysis with YSI handheld parameter and an ICP-OES analysis were conducted. The analysis shown that early low concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) (3.5~4.5 mg/L) and highest concentration of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH4-N) (20.69 mg/L) as well as high concentration of sulphur (S) 3.506 mg/L) were found in both water sample and the tissue samples of the organisms. This concludes that the death of the aquatic life was due to the toxicity of sulphur found in the tissue samples.