TITLE:
Geo-Spatial Assessment of Water Quality in Shigar Valley, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan
AUTHORS:
Syeda Urooj Fatima, Moazzam Ali Khan, Syed Shahid Shaukat, Aamir Alamgir, Farhan Siddiqui, Nasir Sulman
KEYWORDS:
Shigar Valley, Physico-Chemical, Metals, Microbial, PCA, IDW
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.14 No.5,
May
20,
2022
ABSTRACT: The current study attempted to evaluate the water quality in terms of physico-chemical properties, metals, and bacteriological characteristics of the surface water available in Shigar Valley located along Shigar River in sub-district Shigar of district Skardu, Gilgit Baltistan (GB), Pakistan. A total of 17 water samples were collected during 2020 and analysed to perform multivariate analysis through principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). Spatial distribution using inverse distance weight (IDW) interpolation was also utilised to determine the water quality in the valley to elucidate public health concerns. The study reveals that physico-chemical characteristics are the most important that affect water quality, followed by metals and bacteriological variables, according to a PCA application based on multivariate analysis. Examinations found that some of the metals including arsenic (As), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and molybdenum (Mo) and all bacteriological parameters enlisting total coliform count (TCC), total faecal coliform (TFC), and total faecal streptococci (TFS) are not following the WHO guidelines that could be hazardous from the public health viewpoint. The IDW-based spatial distribution indicates that water samples have an intermittent and unusual distribution of observed parameters. Having considerable community settlements, people in the valley have limited options and have no choice except to consume the available water as no alternate source is available. People hardly question the water quality and rarely examine the water potability. The study also demonstrated that combining PCA with IDW would be a powerful method for assessing water quality. It is suggested that the sources of contamination be investigated further in detail to reduce the pollution load of the surface water in the valley, which could aid in the development of sustainable ecotourism.