Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment in the Estuaries of Caspian Sea

Lakes and seas are final receiving bodies of different pollutants discharged into the surface waters. Caspian Sea in south, receives various contaminations discharged alongside the shore line or transferred by rivers mostly accumulated in estuaries. This study aims to find out which estuary is polluted and requires more environmental attention. Consequently, three estuaries of Babolrood, Chaloos, and Sefidrood are sampled and analyzed. The experimental results show that Babolrood has low ORP and high TSS, Coliform and nitrate values. Therefore, it is highly polluted as a matter of untreated domestic wastewater discharged. This may threats the recreational applications and sanitations of the residents.However, Sefidrood and Chaloos, are more detrimental in heavy metal concentrations. Ni and Cr are high in Sefidrood while Cd and Co are mostly observed in Chaloos. This may be due to the activities of mining and road constructions upstream of Chaloos and industrial discharges upstream of Sefidrood.