Rapid Assessment Method for Evaluation of the Weighted Contribution of Anthropogenic Pollution: A Case Study of Lake Burullus, Egypt

This paper proposes a pragmatic approach for rapid assessment of the weighted contribution of the main waste streams contributing to pollution of surface water bodies. A case study was conducted on Lake Burullus in Egypt. The lake suffers from pollution due to many human-based activities around the lake, such as domestic, industrial, agriculture, fish farming, and solid wastes. The weighted contribution of these activities was assessed in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP). The results showed that the highest organic load is due to the domestic wastewater pollution component (63.2% of COD load), followed by fish aquaculture (35.4%). The highest TN (43.9%) and TP (58.3%) pollutant loads to Lake Burullus are due to the agricultural pollution component, followed by fish aquaculture with pollutant loads of 28.5% and 25.3%, respectively. The industrial wastewater pollution component has a very small effect on the pollution of Lake Burullus. The assessment of this study will help identify and magnify the key polluters and thus guide the decision-makers to prioritize investment planning for depollution intervention projects. For example, if the target is to reduce COD loads, investments must be directed toward the rehabilitation and expansion of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).

Assessment of Water Quality, Eutrophication, and Zooplankton Community in Lake Burullus, Egypt

Burullus Lake is Egypt’s second most important coastal lagoon. The present study aimed to shed light on the different types of polluted waters entering the lake from various drains, as well as to evaluate the zooplankton community, determine the physical and chemical characteristics of the waters, and study the eutrophication state based on three years of seasonal monitoring from 2017 to 2019 at 12 stations. The results revealed that Rotifera, Copepoda, Protozoa, and Cladocera dominated the zooplankton population across the three-year study period, with a total of 98 taxa from 59 genera and 10 groups detected in the whole-body lake in 2018 and 2019, compared to 93 species from 52 genera in 2017. Twelve representative surface water samples were collected from the lake to determine physicochemical parameters, i.e., temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia-N, nitrate–N, nitrate-N, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, dissolved reactive phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a, as well as Fe, Cu, Zn, Cr, Ni, Cd, and Pb ions. Based on the calculations of the water quality index (WQI), the lake was classified as having good water quality. However, the trophic state is ranked as hyper-eutrophic and high trophic conditions.