Water Quality Analysis Report For The Location 4 - Mars Creek In Macquarie University

Abstract

This paper deals with the water quality analysis report for the location 4 – Mars Creek in Macquarie University situated at Balaclava Rd, Macquarie Park NSW 2109, Australia. In this report we will find the relationship between the contaminants and the water present in the Mars Creek. Water quality assessment at the mars creek watershed scale requires not only an investigation of water pollution and the recognition of main pollution factors, but also the identification of polluted risky reason resulted in polluted surrounding river sections. To realize this objective, we collected water samplings from various sites in mars creek with Grid GIS method to analyze six parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), nitrite nitrogen (NO2-N), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). Single factor pollution index and comprehensive pollution index were adopted to explore main water pollutants and evaluate water quality pollution level. Based on two evaluate methods, Geo-statistical analysis and Geographical Information System (GIS) were used to visualize the spatial pollution characteristics and identifying potential polluted risky regions. The results indicated that the general water quality in the watershed has been exposed to various pollutants, in which TP, NO2-N and TN were the main pollutants and seriously exceeded the standard of Category III.

[image: :Screen Shot 2019-10-05 at 6.26.38 PM.png] (GPS Coordinates : -33.7713228, 151.1142253)

Introduction

With the rapid growth in economic and social development in the country, non-point source pollution to the environment from livestock and poultry industry, aquaculture industry, planting industry, and rural domestic sewage to our living space centered on the Earth has drawn much attention to the public and policy-makers (Niemi et al., 1990). This document updates the Australian water quality guidelines for fresh and marine waters released in 1992 (ANZECC 1992).Specifically, this document outlines the important principles, objectives and philosophical basis of underpinning the development and application of the guidelines, the management framework recommended for applying the water quality guidelines to the natural and semi-natural marine and fresh water resources in Australia and New Zealand, provides a summary of the water quality guidelines proposed to protect and manage the environmental values supported by the water resources; provides advice on designing and implementing water quality monitoring and assessment programs has also been revised using data, relevant literature, and other available information to at least 1996 (https://www.ijltet.org/journal/151736924028.%202064.pdf, 2018).

Background

The current guidelines including this working documentation is taken from a revision of the NWQMS guidelines published in 1992 (ANZECC 1992). The revision was necessary to incorporate current scientific, national and international information in a clear and understandable format, ensuring that the guidelines complement major policy initiatives and directions undertaken at the state and federal levels in the areas of ecologically sustainable development and water resource management, promote a more realistic approach to aquatic ecosystem management, incorporate more detailed guidance on how to refine national or regional guidelines for site-specific application, it is important input to the review process from Australia and New Zealand has included public submissions on the 1992 Guidelines. Earlier drafts of the revised document are the most recent local and overseas scientific and resource management documents and information relevant overseas water quality guideline documents and government submissions. In accordance with the script of philosophy of the 1992 Guidelines, the chapters in this document describe how to apply state-of-the-art practices of water resource management and assessment for the protection of the environmental values.

Guiding Principles

The Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality are initially based on the philosophy of ecologically sustainable development (ESD). The Australian National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD Steering Committee 1992) defined ESD is defined as the development of ecological systems by conserving and enhancing the community’s resources on the ecological processes on which life depends are maintained along with the total quality of life aiming now and in the future that could be increased (Yan et al., 2015). Illustrating more simply the ESD is a development process which aims to meet the needs of Australians today, while conserving our ecosystems to the benefits of future generations. The need to comply with ESD principles is being included in statutes throughout Australia, with the commitment to continuous environmental improvement through comprehensive and integrated public policy. The Purpose and Principles in the Resource Management Act (1991) was to set out the philosophy and approach for water management in Australia (Waterquality.gov.au, 2019). The purpose of the RMA is to promote sustainable management, which is broadly equivalent to the ESD philosophy. The Guidelines are also based on the policies and principles of the Australian National Water Quality Management Strategy as explained in ANZECC and ARMCANZ (1994) (Yan et al., 2019). The principles includes ecologically sustainable development, an integrated approach to water quality management, including establishment of the environmental values and development of management plans, community involvement in water resource management and government endorsement of the water quality policy objectives (Meng, 2019). Four further guiding principles have also been adopted by the Australian’s are: A coordinated and cooperative approach to water quality management is vital and involves all spheres of the community, government local and indigenous groups and the private sector. The high variability and complexity inherent in natural water resources needs to be recognised and taken into account when evaluating water quality or developing management strategies. Water resources are special features of the environment and their quality and integrity should be conserved and managed according to the intent of the Australian National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, the Wetlands Policy of the Commonwealth Government of Australia and the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity (Waterquality.gov.au, 2019). Current research results shows the inter-relationships between ecological processes, water quality and the biota and the dissemination of these findings in a readily usable form which are essential for effective management of water resources.

Materials And Methodologies

The Water Samples from Mars creek were collected from different sites in the morning hours between 10 to 12 am in Polythene bottle regularly for every month. The Water samples were immediately brought in to Laboratory for the Estimation of various Physico-chemical parameters, like temperature of water and pH of water that were recorded at the time of sample collection by using Thermometer and Pocket Digital pH Meter (Construction Environmental Management Plan, 2019). Meanwhile other Parameters like DO, TDS, Free CO2, Hardness, Alkalinity, Chlorides, Phosphate and Nitrate were estimated in the Laboratory by using Indian Standard Procedures (Titration method, Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) Thermo M5 Model).

Figure 1: FLOW CHART of guidelines to methodologies

Sampling And Chemical Analysis Of Water

To ensure enough spatial water sampling representative in such a large water area while decreasing the pressure of logistic support in the field to the minimum, the sampling strategy was designed to account for enough impacts being imposed from the main tributary inputs upon downstream water quality by subdivided the watershed drainage area into 400 equal grids according to geographic location with GIS tool. The sampling activity was conducted following “Technical Specification Requirements for Monitoring of Surface Water and Waste Water” (HJ/T91–2002) in May 2011. Three water samples from each sampling site were taken and analysed. Each sampling site was positioned by Global Positioning System (GPS) (Table 1), and chemical analyses were carried out immediately after the water samples were brought back, the analyses procedure strictly obeys the guideline described in “Monitoring and Analysis Method of Water and Waste water”. The measured chemical parameters include field DO, NH3-N, NO3-N, NO2-N, TN and TP (Waterquality.gov.au, 2019). All the observed data was facilitated and visualized to perform spatial analysis with GIS software and achieved for further studies.

Table 1: Sampling Data

The sampling data for water in mars creek is illustrated in Table 2 along with the data of sediments present in the water.

Table 2: Water quality data

Assessment Method Of Water Quality

For the long-term management systems of any water resources, there must be a designated and clearly stated set of environmental values that can be easy in understanding of the links between human activities and the environmental quality at an acceptable level of confidence, unambiguous goals for management with appropriate water quality objectives and effective management frameworks including cooperative, regulatory, feed-back and auditing mechanisms. Single factor pollution index method and comprehensive pollution index is referred to the level III water quality categories which are cited in “Environmental Quality Standards for Surface Water” (GB3838–2002, GHZB1–1999) [29, 30], published by the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA) of China, were adopted to assess the water quality of the study area. DO, NH3-N, NO3-N, NO2-N, TP and TN, were selected as the basic criterion through surface water environment function zoning made by GIS for water quality assessment.

Table 3: Location 4 data interpretation

Australia and New Zealand both have a regional government framework in place. The political boundaries imposed within Australia place most of the responsibility for the management of natural resources with the states and the territories. In Australia primary responsibility for water management rests with local councils. Water resource management is best implemented by integrating state, regional and national, powers and responsibilities, and by using complementary water quality planning and policy tools (Department of Environmental Sciences 2015 ANNUAL REPORT, 2015). After all the technical information available has been allocated for prescribed water body that could be followed to implement a broad national management strategy at a regional level.

Graph: Enrichment factor based on location 4 of Mars Creek

Environmental Actions

Environmental Risks or Environmental Aspects can illustrated as potential environmental obligations and risks associated with the project shall be identified prior to the start of the project by the Project Manager on the FDC Site Risk Assessment. The Environmental Risk Assessment will be provided to subcontractors and suppliers as part of the subcontract and supply contracts, risks are identified as medium to high in the matrix studying the impacts associated with FDC’s activities, products and services which will be deemed as “significant” and require operational controls that should be described on the basis of Environmental Actions & Monitoring Table (Section 3.11) Significant aspects may impact on the environment positively (e.g. recycling) or negatively (e.g. pollution). The Supplementary Plans required by the contract, Development Application by the Project Manager will be attached to this plan. The supplementary plans required are Construction Traffic and Pedestrian Management Plan, Construction Noise and Vibration Management Plan, Construction Waste Management Plan, Construction Soil and Water Management Plan, Flood Emergency Response Plan, Communications and Stakeholder Management Plan, Environmental Policy, Supplementary plans are found in Appendices.

Results And Conclusion

Figure 2: Summarised Graphs of the water assessment at location 4

The report concludes that all the people in the society and the system should acknowledge and understand the true meaning and importance of the ANZAC guidelines for the solution to the sustainability of environmental problems through everyone’s enrolment. The area under the project is in semidry zone, there is a rapid increase in temperature after the month of January, April is the hottest month. The climate of the year is divided into four seasons that are hot season from March to May; South-west monsoon from June to September; Post-monsoon from October to November; winter from December to February. Generally, the weather in study area is quite cool, however the water temperature plays an important factor which influences the chemical, bio-chemical characteristics of water body. The higher pH values observed suggests that carbon dioxide, carbonate-bicarbonate equilibrium is affected more due to change in physicochemical condition.

References

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7. Construction Environmental Management Plan. (2019). [ebook] Macquarie: FDC, pp.1-150. Available at: https://www.mq.edu.au/about/about-the-university/our-campus/campus-development-plan/central-courtyard-precinct/central-courtyard-pdfs/MUCCP-Construction-Environmental-Management-Plan-Rev-E-1.pdf [Accessed 5 Oct. 2019].
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