M.Sc. / Water quality management is the effort of the community to control the physical, chemical and biological qualities of water. Water quality is mainly controlled by the activities of the community and the hydrological cycle. Usually an effort is made to control only one of the two causes, namely the activities of the community. The Sasolburg industrial complex is the largest of its kind in the Free State and consists mainly of chemical industries. A large proportion of the effluent is returned to the Vaal River via the Sasol sewerage works while some industries have permission to send their effluent to the Taaibosspruit, east of Sasolburg. The most industries let their storm water flow into the Taaibosspruit The option of the location of a monitoring point should determine whether the collected data is representative of the water quality and whether it is useful to observe trends in the water quality. The reliability of the data on water quality is strongly dependent on inter alia, the frequency of monitoring, which is determined by the availibility of staff and funding. By investigating the present monitoring sytem by Rand Water, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the industries through this study it had to be determined whether the functioning of the monitoring network was optimal.Deficiencies like: unmonitored and unauthorised streams; badly contaminated areas which pollute the storm water and; the absence of retention facilities for contamninated storm water were found. Recommendations like: extra monitoring points; retention facilities for storm water and; biomonitoring for combined streams were made. Of great importance is the recommendation for the establishment of a local water quality management body to control the water quality of the water sources in the region.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:3307 |
| Date | 28 August 2012 |
| Creators | Jannasch, Hendrik Petrus |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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