Loading…

Water Quality Degradation in Urban Rivers of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Changes, Status, and Causes

Water quality degradation of urban rivers has become a serious constraint to the sustainable development of big cities in sub-Saharan Africa, and few systematic quantitative studies have been conducted on this issue. Here, we studied three main urban rivers: Mzinga River, Kizinga River, and Msimbazi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water, air, and soil pollution air, and soil pollution, 2023-04, Vol.234 (4), p.224, Article 224
Main Authors: Yao, Cunjing, Han, Chao, Wang, Zhaode, Friese, Kurt, Wang, Yadong, Zuo, Shengpeng, Kimirei, Ismael A., Kishe, Mary A., Gao, Qun, Xiong, Chuanhe, Guo, Zheng, Yuan, Yuke, Zhang, Jiaqi, Zhang, Lu, Chen, Sophia Shuang, Shen, Qiushi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Water quality degradation of urban rivers has become a serious constraint to the sustainable development of big cities in sub-Saharan Africa, and few systematic quantitative studies have been conducted on this issue. Here, we studied three main urban rivers: Mzinga River, Kizinga River, and Msimbazi River in Dar es Salaam, the largest port city on the west coast of the Indian Ocean. The spatial and temporal changes of the physicochemical parameters including DO, pH, oxidation–reduction potential (ORP), electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, total nitrogen (TN), total dissolved nitrogen (TDN), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), chemical oxygen demand (COD Mn ), total phosphorus (TP), total dissolved phosphorus (TDP), soluble reactive phosphate (SRP), and water quality index ( WQI ) were investigated. The results showed that the middle and lower reaches of the three rivers were severely polluted with N (nitrogen) and P (phosphorus) with pollution increasing from the upstream to the downstream. WQI results showed that the water quality of Msimbazi River was in the “poor” category and fluctuated temporally and spatially. Principal component analyses (PCA) implied that redox status and N were the main factors affecting the water quality of the rivers. Unregulated discharges of untreated municipal and industrial wastewaters were the main drivers of water quality degradation in the rivers. Rapid urbanization characterized by population explosion and the small handicraft industry aggravated the situation. Source control and end treatment are urgently needed to prevent the water quality of the urban rivers in Dar es Salaam from deteriorating further.
ISSN:0049-6979
1573-2932
DOI:10.1007/s11270-023-06237-4