Parameters of Surface Water Quality and their Interpretation

Abstract

Just what the parameters of surface water pollution are depends very much on how water pollution may be defined. There are several different categories of water pollution, which include pollution by potentially pathogenic micro-organisms, oil pollution, the presence of excess suspended material, acid pollution, the presence of toxic salts of heavy metals and the presence of certain undesirable synthetic compounds of which synthetic detergents are a prime example. In addition there is the presence in surface waters of organic material which is readily biodegradable. Frequently this material is discharged to streams as sewage or as industrial wastewater and it is the resulting high demand for oxygen dissolved in the receiving stream which is commonly thought of as the usual and most important form of surface water pollution.