Nile River Freshwater Quality Assessment at Assiut Governorate

Document Type : Original Research Articles.

Authors

1 Assiut and New Valley Company for Water and Wastewater, Assiut, Egypt

2 Civil Engineering Department, Military Technological College, Muscat, Oman

3 Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Egypt

Abstract

The Nile River is the longest in Africa and is one of the most important sources of freshwater. Water specifications vary along the course of the river, which represents the main source of drinking water in Egypt, with depends on the treatment of raw freshwater by conventional plants to get rid of the main pollutants of freshwater, such as suspended particles (turbidity) and microorganisms, therefore assessment of the characteristics of freshwater of the river over long period and studying it opens many horizons for establishing of new techniques for treating the freshwater.
The main objective of this study is to monitor the Nile River over a period at the study area Assiut-Egypt, as this study shows that the Nile River contains large quantities of bacteria with an average 1645 CFU/ml throughout the year in different seasons those affects the numbers of these bacteria, in addition to the river contains moderated concentrations of total dissolved solids with an average 216 ppm, and the average turbidity is about 4.7 NTU, while the average value of pH was 8.2, as well as confirming the low concentrations of iron as the average was 0.04 ppm, moderate concentrations of chloride as its average was 15 ppm, and low concentrations of ammonia as the average was 0.06 ppm. Therefore, this study is an assessment of the Nile River water specifications to prove that the freshwater required to be treated of the non-complied values of bacteria and turbidity concerning the Egyptian drinking water standards.

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