Technical strategy for revitalizing urban river water quality through structural approach at national university of Malaysia (UKM) bangi campus, Selangor, Malaysia

• Published in: Applied Ecology and Environmental Research
• Main Author: Mahmud M.H.; Lee K.E.; Mokhtar M.; Wahid M.A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Corvinus University of Budapest 2018
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85048873406&doi=10.15666%2faeer%2f1603_26812699&partnerID=40&md5=e6654ed3d71db76aef5799e61f6f105b

This paper aims to provide technical insights on revitalizing urban river water quality through structural approach in Alur Ilmu urban river, National University of Malaysia @ Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Bangi Campus. The structural approach consists of three main parts: site profiling, water quality assessment to determine spatial distribution of pollutions and on-site water treatment system. The selected water quality parameters were Dissolved Oxygen, Ammoniacal Nitrogen, pH, Total Suspended Solid, Chemical Oxygen Demand and Biological Oxygen Demand. The obtained values were indexed in accordance with Water Quality Index (WQI) of National Water Quality Standard (NWQS) for Malaysia and interpolated to produce thematic maps indicating the point sources of pollution using Kriging model. A series of on-site water treatment system, namely constructed wetland, gross pollutant trap, permeable pavement wall and floating treatment wetland were then strategically constructed using both information obtained from site profiling and spatial distribution. The structural approach has been deployed since 12 June 2015 and has shown significant improvement on average WQI for all thirteen stations from 68.85 to 79.87 in less than 10 months. The most influential point for source of pollution was detected at AL5 (FST Café), it has improved the most, from 51.36 to 73.18. The structural approach has successfully improved Alur Ilmu water quality and should be complemented with non-structural approach to ensure the sustainability of water resource. © 2018, ALÖKI Kft., Budapest, Hungary.