Application of Index Analysis to Evaluate the Water Quality of the Tuul River in Mongolia

Abstract

A study of water pollution determinands of the Tuul River was carried out in surrounding area of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia at 14 monitoring sites, using an extensive dataset between 1998 and 2008. An index method, developed by Ministry of Nature and Environment of Mongolia, applied for assessment and total, seven hydro-chemicals used in the index calculation. The research indicates that the Tuul River is not polluted until the Ulaanbaatar city and the contamination level spike appears when the river entering the city. The upper reaches of the river and tributaries have relatively good quality waters. Several pollution sources exist in the study area. Among them, the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant (CWTP) is a strongest point source in the downstream section of the river, recently. Pollutions at sites 7 -10 are strongly dependant effluent treatment levels from the plant, and it contains a high amount of chemicals that can cause of major decrement of the water quality. This would definitely kill aquatic fauna in the stretch of the river affected. It certainly happened in 2007. The general trend of water quality gradually has been decreased in the study period. Clearly, there is a need to improve the water quality in the Tuul River in surrounding area of the Ulaanbaatar. In order to change this situation, operation enhancement of treatment plants, a water quality modeling and artificial increment of dissolved oxygen concentrations become crucial to improve the water quality significantly. Perhaps a new wastewater treatment plant is needed for Ulaanbaatar city.

Development of a water quality index (WQI) for the Loktak Lake in India

“…Later, numerous researchers have carried out studies on water quality assessment using WQIs around the world in various water bodies (Pesce and Wunderlin 2000;Bordalo et al 2001;Abdul et al 2010;Akbal et al 2011;Altansukh and Davaa 2011;Hector et al 2012;Abdulwahid 2013;Mohamed et al 2014;Chrysoula et al 2014;Mehmet and Huseyin 2014;Will et al 2015;Gerald et al 2015;Hefni and Romanto 2015;Lobato et al 2015;Mehrnoosh et al 2015). Similarly, a number of studies have been carried out in India (Dwivedi and Pathak 2007;Joshi et al 2009;Samantray et al 2009;Chauhan and Singh 2010;Alam and Pathak 2010;Parmar and Parma 2010;Chaturvedi and Bassin 2010;Kalavathy et al 2011;Kankal et al 2012;Srinivas et al 2013;Prerna et al 2014;Salim and Ashok 2014;Jindal et al 2014;Mrunmayee et al 2015;Krishna et al 2014Krishna et al , 2015Kosha and Geeta 2015).…”

Speciation and hydrological transport of metals in non-acidic river systems of the Lake Baikal basin: Field data and model predictions

“…The combined influences of land use alterations (the expansion of mining areas) and projected climate changes (the expected increased frequency of peak flow events; Altansukh and Davaa 2011;Törnqvist et al 2014) will likely result in increased discharge and erosion in the Lake Baikal drainage basin. Therefore, the transport of metals from the Zaamar site to the connected river systems will also likely increase.…”

“…The Tuul River basin covers an area of approximately 50,000 km 2 , and the Sharyngol River basin is approximately half this size (MCA 2011). The activity of the numerous mining companies within the Zaamar Goldfield, along with illegal mining, is considered to have a serious impact on the water quality within the river basin (Altansukh and Davaa 2011;Chalov et al 2012;Thorslund et al 2012;Shinkareva et al 2015) and may have an impact on the downstream Selenga River and Lake Baikal. High levels of metals have been measured in the Tuul River (Lee et al 2006;AATA 2008), and previous mass balance quantifications have shown a net increase in metal loading, especially of metals in suspension, in the mining zone (Stubblefield et al 2005;Thorslund et al 2012).…”

“…The region also naturally contains abundant calcium bicarbonate (Altansukh and Davaa 2011), and there are strong interactions between the surface waters and groundwater due to extensive areas of alluvial unconfined aquifers in the river valleys (Zandaryaa et al 2008). This condition impacts the quality and quantity of both the Tuul and Sharyngol Rivers because the rivers are fed by groundwater inflows with high degrees of water-rock interaction, causing high pH values throughout the region (Lee et al 2006;Zandaryaa et al 2008).…”

Water Resources Sustainability of Ulaanbaatar City, Mongolia

“…The quality of its water sources meets the standards for drinking and industrial uses, with concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) ranging from 60 to 100 mg/L, remaining unaffected by sources of pollution in the city [10]. However, since the late 1990s, water quality in the downstream area of the Tuul River has deteriorated, due mainly to urban and industrial pollution [11][12][13][14][15]. Moreover, the unplanned expansion of Ger districts around the city has created a high potential for water contamination due to a lack of appropriate sanitation and sewage systems, which are based on pit latrines.…”