Assessing the Effect of Urbanization on Water Quantity and Quality of Balukhluchai River in Ardabil

changes of urban and non urban Land uses and discharge of raw urban and rural wastewater in to the rivers especially in the areas where rivers passing through the cities, will reduce drastically the quality of water and also affects on its quantity and in some cases, may cause diseases outbreak or reduction of agricultural products. Therefore with respect to the importance of such changes in the management of resources of surface waters and the impact of urbanization on both of the said parameters especially in urban rivers , the main objective of this study is the assessment of the time and place changes of the quality and quantity of the run off of Balukhluchai River and the impact of Ardebil urban development on it. The Land sat classified satellite photos of the area by the supervised method with the most similarity algorithm in ENVI software environment showed that the area of urban districts during the recent 15 years has increased about 1568 hectares. Also the results of data analysis of daily discharge and quality parameters of the registered monthly water quality at hydrometric stations of the flow inlet ( Almas bridge) and flow outlet ( Guilandeh) showed that the decreasing slope of average daily discharge in the outlet is less than the inlet . This issue can be due to the increase of production and discharge of urban contaminated surface run offs in to the river due to the increase of urban impermeable surfaces and generation of pollutants.