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Impact of marble industry effluents on water and sediment quality of Barandu River in Buner District, Pakistan

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Abstract

Industries play an important role in improving the living standard but at the same time cause several environmental problems. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the impact of industries on the quality of environment. In the present study, the impact of marble industry effluents on water and sediment quality of Barandu River in Buner District, Pakistan was evaluated. Water and sediment samples were collected at three different sampling sites (upstream, industrial, and downstream sites) from Barandu River and their physicochemical properties were inter-compared. In addition, different marble stones and mix water (wastewater) from marble industry were analyzed. The measured physicochemical parameters of river water including pH, electrical conductivity (EC), alkalinity, total hardness, Ca and Mg hardness, total dissolved solid (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), sulfates (SO4 2−), sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), nitrites (NO2 −), nitrate (NO3 −), chloride (Cl−), calcium (Ca2+), and magnesium (Mg2+) were found to be significantly altered by effluent discharges of marble industries. Similarly, heavy metal concentrations in both water and sediments of the river were significantly increased by marble industry wastewater. It is concluded that large quantities of different pollutants are added to Barandu River due to direct disposal of marble industry effluents which degrades its quality. Therefore, it is recommended that direct disposal of marble industry wastewater should be banned and all effluents must be properly treated before discharging in the river water.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for financially supporting the analytical work of this project under “Access to Scientific Instrumentation Programme.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan

    Shahi Mulk & Muhammad Nasir Khan Khattak

  2. Department of Botany, Kohat University of Science and Technology, Kohat, Pakistan

    Azizullah Azizullah

  3. Department of Livestock and Fisheries, Government of Sindh, Sindh, Pakistan

    Abdul Latif Korai

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  1. Shahi Mulk
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  2. Azizullah Azizullah
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  3. Abdul Latif Korai
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  4. Muhammad Nasir Khan Khattak
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Correspondence to Muhammad Nasir Khan Khattak.

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Mulk, S., Azizullah, A., Korai, A.L. et al. Impact of marble industry effluents on water and sediment quality of Barandu River in Buner District, Pakistan. Environ Monit Assess 187, 8 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-4221-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-4221-8

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