JOANA MALO , ILIRJANA BOCI , JONA KERI
KEYWORDS : water basin, water quality, monitoring stations, environmental pollution indicators.
ABSTRACT :
National Environment Agency’s Environmental Status Reports have classified the Ishmi-Erzen water basin in Class V –Bad status- during the period 2018 – 2022. This classification highlights significant concerns about water quality due to population growth and inadequate water treatment infrastructure. This study identifies the potential hotspots data from ten stationary monitoring points along the basin, collected over several years (2018-2022), to identify potential hotspots for organic contaminants in the river basin. The analysis focuses on BOD5, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and phosphorus content. Key findings have indicated the highest pollution levels in some sampling sites. One of them showed consistently high pollution levels, throughout the monitoring period. Additionally, another sampling site revealed significant pollution only in BOD5 and ammonia. These results suggest that these areas are critical hotspots or further study due to their potential impact on public health and aquatic ecosystems. Changes in dissolved oxygen (DO) and fluctuations in other environmental pollution parameters indicate various pollution sources, requiring ongoing attention to address water pollution effectively. This paper aims to evaluate the analytical data from official environmental reports to provide an overall overview on the environmental water basins hotspots, the most prevalent pollutants and indicators to better set up the methodology, determine the critical sampling sites for eventual pharmaceutical residues monitoring and findings. The analysis of the data published from the National Environmental Agency Annual Reports will serve to outline our monitoring program on some pharmaceutical drugs present in environment, water basins, in particular.