Spatial Variations in Water Quality in an Urbanizing Catchment

Spatial variations in water quality in a medium-sized complex catchment are described. The catchment is complex, both with respect to patterns of rock-type and land-use, and variations in water quality are related to the distribution of each. The 33 -03 km2 Monks' Brook catchment in Hampshire is described and the stream sampling procedure outlined. During a three year period over 1500 water samples were taken from numerous localities representative of the major rock-types and land-uses within the catchment. Each sample was analysed for a number of water quality determinands, twelve of which are considered here. The Kruskall-Wallis H (hereafter K-W H) and Mann-Whitney U (hereafter M-W U) non-parametric test statistics were employed to investigate the significance of spatial variations. The major rock-types, Chalk and Bracklesham Beds, have specific influence upon the concentrations of calcium (Ca2+) and bicarbonate (HCOi), and iron (Fe2+) and manganese (Mn2+) respectively. Urban baseflow drainage can be characterized mainly by elevated sodium (Na +) and chloride (Cl +) concentrations, and possibly by increased potassium (K+) concentrations

Cartography · Drainage basin · Geography · Hydrology (agriculture · Physical geography · Quality (philosophy · Water quality · Water resource management · Ecology · Environmental Science · Geology · Groundwater and Watershed Analysis · Water Quality and Pollution Assessment · Water Quality and Resources Studies

• Spatial Variation of River Water Quality

  D E Walling, B W Webb et al.•Transactions of the Institute of…•1975

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