Wastewater Features and its impact upon Vital Environment in BASRA

Abstract

Wastewater consists of all types of water produced by various human activities, whether at the domestic, commercial or industrial level. This type of water has various names such as sewage, drainage or sludge. The main source of these types of wastewater comes from home drain. It consists of 99.9% water and 1.0% solids, some of them are dissolved and some others are suspended, some are organic, others are not organic. The organic matters occupy 70% out the solids present in the wastewater. The problem is that Basra province does not possess well constructed drain pipes especially in the rural areas, and most of the wastewater is drained into the rivers and streams. The current study hypothesizes that the wastewater features in Basra drained into the environment have negative effects on the vital environment. This work aims at recognizing the features of the wastewater and its drainage in Basra and its effects upon the water and agricultural media as well as the resulting diseases. The main results of this study are: 1. People in Basra, numbering 2894591 in 2016, are suffering from the problem of drainage which is not well treated, especially in the rural areas. 2. There is only one managing wastewater station in Basra which is in Hamdan district with 236000 M3 day drawing energy serving only 50% of Basra total population. The treated water runs from this station through earthy channel with a length of 8.5 Km. flowing into Shatt-al-Arab after the wastewater passes with stages of primary and secondary deposition with no sterilization, and thus carrying contaminations and bacteria that cause different diseases. 3. Discharging this type of water into Shatt-al-Arab affects the vital environment especially fish and floating plants, and this changes the qualitative characteristics of the water because of the increasing concentration of the contaminants above the required measurements. 4. The study shows an increase in the total dissolved salts in the treated drainage water in Hamdan Station up to 6404 Mg/L. in January 2016 and up to 3682 Mg/L. in June 2016 and the environmental limit is 1500 Mg/L.