Study on effect of seasonal variations on water quality of Shallabugh wetland

Abstract

The present study was aimed to determine the seasonal physical and chemical nature of water at three different sites of Shallabugh wetland, Kashmir Himalaya. Different parameters viz. water temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total dissolved solids (TDS) were assessed during the study period from February 2018 to November 2018. The data reveals that water temperature ranged from 5.98 to 25.88 0C, COD (40.62 to 74.77 mg/L), BOD (16.06 to 38.28 mg/L) with higher value in summer and lower in winter. On the other hand value of DO (2.41 to 11.56 mg/L) and TDS (155.0 to 324.5 mg/L) where recorded maximum in winter compared to summer. The trend of temperature, BOD, COD and TDS at different sites in all the four seasons were observed in the following descending order: Site-II>Site-III>Site-I whereas DO showed reverse trend. Site-II has been observed to be more affected by the pollution sources, experiencing high pollution load compared to Site-I and Site-III due to due to anthropogenic activities such as domestic waste water and other waste material entering into the wetland through an inlet channel near site-II. The correlation among water parameters showed both significant positive and negative trends.