Wastewater treatment is a process, which is being done on the wastewater to change its quality to be within the required specifications of water discharged to the surface waterway or water used for different purposes. In the present study, the performance of the oxidation ditch system related to Al-Muamirah wastewater treatment plant in Hilla city, province of Babylon, Iraq, in removing the pollutant of municipal were evaluated. The samples were taken from input wastewater and output treated water of the plant to measure the pollutant parameters. These parameters are the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5 ), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Ammonia (NH3 ), Phosphorus (P04 ), and the quantitative measure of the acidity or basicity (pH). Data were analyzed by using Excel software. The results show that the efficiency of removal of BOD 5, COD, TSS, NH3 and P04 was 91%, 78%, 93%, 69% and 68%, respectively on a monthly basis. Accordingly, it can be recommended that the Al-Muamirah wastewater treatment plant has an acceptable efficiency of wastewater treatment and producing water in accordance with Iraqi environmental standards of water discharged to the surface water or water of other uses.

During the last five decades, a huge amount of water pollutants has been recorded in all water resources around the world. Therefore, the water quality has become an important indicator affecting the vitality and productivity of plants, which requires an effective technique to monitor all these pollutants. The main objective of this study is to assess the validity of groundwater for wells located within the boundaries of the Green Belt area in Karbala city/Iraq for irrigation of palm and olive trees. Whereas, the use of saline groundwater as an alternative to available fresh water will promote the sustainable development of water resources. The technique of Water Quality Index (WQI) is a reliable and widely used tool for assessing water quality for various sources, including groundwater. In this study, the Canadian water quality index (CWQI) model was applied to provide a database for planning and monitoring the quality of groundwater in wells located in the study area. Groundwater samples were taken from these wells and tested to find seven parameters which were; pH, CL, Mg, HCO3, EC, Na and Ca. The CWQI values of groundwater for the studied wells ranged from 30 to 35. According to the CWQI scale, the groundwater of all wells is classified as poor water. Therefore, the groundwater of all wells in the study area must be treated before it is used for the purpose of irrigation of palm and olive trees. This study concluded that to ensure good irrigation management in the study area, future changes of groundwater in the study area must be monitored.

Evapotranspiration represents one of the main parameters in the hydrological cycle. It is usually expressed by the term reference evapotranspiration (ETo) that is affected by certain meteorological parameters. This study aimed to find the difference amount in ETo between urban and suburban quarters in Karbala city. The study methodology involved selecting once urban area and four suburban quarters. Two methods of determining the reference evapotranspiration were applied: first, a direct method which measured ETo at selected fields by using a hand-held device, and second, an indirect method using the Penman-Monteith equation. The findings showed that the magnitudes of ETo by the Penman-Monteith equation are higher than the values measured by the direct method for urban and suburban quarters. Moreover, it was found that the absolute percentage of difference in the average amount of ETo between urban and suburban quarters is 13% by using the direct method and 61% by using Penman-Monteith equation. The study conclusion is that suburban area has higher magnitude of ETo than urban quarter by using any of direct method and indirect method (Penman-Monteith equation).

The common tool to evaluate the groundwater quality is so-called the Irrigation Water Quality Index (IWQI). In the present study, the IWQI model developed by Meireles is used to assess the quality of groundwater in Karbala - Najaf plateau, Iraq. The quality parameters that collected from groundwater tests of 78 wells in the study area are; EC, Na+1, Mg+2, Ca+2, Cl-1, and HCO3-1. The SPSS software program is employed to develop a non-linear regression model of the IWQI for the study area. The results show that the IWQI values for 90% of groundwater wells fall within the Severe Restriction (SR) category, which means that it’s only suitable for irrigation of high salt tolerance crops. While its remaining 10% of the wells are in the High Restriction (HR) category, and this means it is suitable for irrigation of moderate to high salt tolerance crops. The calibration and validation for the developed model presented that this model has a good estimation of the IWQI values. Due to flexible and unbiased, the current study recommends to use the proposed model to estimate the IWQI.

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