River Water Quality

The quality of river surface water and groundwater is identified in terms of its physical, chemical and biological parameters (Cooke et al, 2005). The declining quality of the river water is caused by two main sources of water pollution which are point sources and non-point source. Point sources is defines as any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollution are discharge, such from the collection and discharge of domestic wastewater, industrial waste or certain agricultural activities like large farm that raise livestock (Mike, 2000). Non-point sources of pollution are often termed ‘diffuse’ pollution and refer to those inputs and impacts which occur over a wide area and are not easily attributed to a single source. They are

This, in many of the occasions, has resulted in indiscriminate mining of sand from in stream and floodplain areas leading to severe damages to the river basin environment (Sreebha & Padmalal, 2011). Potently, the degradation of rivers water is directly linked to development process. Among the various kinds of human intervention, indiscriminate sand mining for construction grade sand from the active channel and the floodplains is one of the major causes for degradation of rivers water quality (Sreeba & Padmalal, 2011).

Sand mining is the process of removal sand from their natural configuration (Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf et al., 2010). There are two types of sand mining sources which are marine and terrestrial deposits. The most common terrestrial sources are river channel deposits, floodplain alluvial deposits and residual deposits while the marine sources are the shore and offshore deposits (Phua et al.,

The Langat River has total catchment area of approximately 1815 km2. It lies within latitudes 2° 40M 152’’’ N to 3°16’M 15’’ and longitudes 101° 19’M 20’’’ E to 102° 1M 10’’ E. The catchment is illustrated in Figure 1. The main river course length is about 141 km mostly situated around 40 km east of Kuala Lumpur. The river flows from the highest peak of 1493 meter of Gunung Nuang across Langat Basin to Kuala Langat. The Langat River has several tributes with the principal ones being of Semenyih River, the Lui River and the Beranang River Langat Basin is an important water catchment area providing raw water supply and other amenities to approximately 1.2 million people within the basin. Important conurbations served include towns such as Cheras, Kajang, Bangi, Government Centre of Putrajaya and others. Use of Langat River is not only limited to water supply but also for other purposes such as recreation, fishing, effluent discharge, irrigation and even sand mining (Hafizan Jauhir et al,