Spatial variability of water quality in the Haraz River toward downstream

The effective role of water in human health and sustainable development is undeniable. However, population growth and pollution limits the quantity and quality of water resources in the world. Increasing trend of pollution and decreasing water resources quality cause the need for proper management of these resources for different applications. The Haraz River has many usages in drinking, agriculture and aquaculture. Because of the Haraz dam construction on the river, the study of water quality in this river is necessary. For this purpose and in order to assess the river water quality, 17 points were selected and the water sampling was collected along this river. Then, the condition of the water quality in the Haraz river was investigated by comparing with international standards in terms of physic-chemical properties such as turbidity, total dissolved material, electrical conductivity, pH, total hardness, sulfate, fluoride, ammonia, nitrite, copper, magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, aluminum, silica, manganese and chloride. Also, Excel and the SPSS software were used to analyze the data. The other required maps were produced using the ArcGis10 software. The results show that the water quality strongly depends on the land uses, the type of landscape, and human presence. Based on these results, stations 1 and 2 had the high level of quality, but toward the downstream stations, including stations 6, 9, 13, 15, the condition of the water quality was deteriorated and it had more pollution.