Assessment of Water Quality of the Trans-Boundary Zarafshan River in the Territory of Uzbekistan
- 1 Department of Applied Ecology, National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
- 2 Department of Geography, Philipps-Universit?t Marburg, Marburg, Germany
- 3 Department of Geography, Philipps-Universit?t Marburg, Marburg, Germany
- 4 Department of Applied Ecology, National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Abstract
The Zarafshan river is a main trans-boundary river of the Aral Seabasin. As the main water resource, the Zarafshan river water is mainly used by the republics ofTajikistanandUzbekistan. We explored the trends of space-time pollution of river water with ammonium, nitrates, phosphates, biological oxygen demand ( ВО D), fluorine and some heavy metals at seven water sampling points along theZarafshanRiver inUzbekistan. The experimental data showed that the water quality of the Zarafshanriver in 2002-2009 has undergone a considerable transformation, even by the length of the river. The chemical composition of the Zarafshan river water underwent changes due to the agricultural collector-drainage discharges and the sewage of the cities of Samarkand and Navoi. The water pollutants of the Zarafshan river, as a con - sequence of the agricultural pollution, consisted of mineralization, ammonium, nitrate, phosphate, and pesticides. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the chemical composition of the large agricultural collector-drainage discharges into the river. The main sources of the heavy metals (primarily arsenic and zinc) in the Zarafshan river water were probably ore processing manufactures located interritoryofTajikistan.
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