Determining discharge, water quality and suspended sediment values in Murgul Creek of Artvin

In recent years, it is known that human-induced activities within forest watersheds have been causing negativity on quality and amount of water produced by these watersheds. In this context, one of the watersheds for which scientific research should be carried out is Murgul Creek Watershed (MCW), affected by the activities of mining, establishment of small hydroelectric power plants (HEPP), road constructions and urbanization. From this point, on 12 sampling points determined along MCW, water temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, salinity, total dissolved substance (TDS), dissolved oxygen (DO), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N) values were measured in the field with YSI (Professional Plus) device. In addition, while amount of suspended solid particles (SSP) was measured by vacuum filtration in the laboratory, the flow rate required for monthly discharge values was determined by a muliner type flow meter. Lastly, to detect a possible heavy metal pollution particularly to be caused by mining operations, arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) analyzes were carried out according to the EPA3015 procedure. The results demonstrated that the parameters of conductivity (438.82 μS/cm), salinity (0.30 mg/L), TDS (400.25 mg/L), NH4-N (0.19 mg/L), NO3-N (5.20 mg/L) and SSP (143.69 mg/L) in waters from the outlet of the mining area were found to be statistically higher than water samples taken near the forest and settlement areas. Moreover, it was determined that DO values decreased in summer months when the water temperature increased and there was a statistically significant difference in terms of sampling times. Finally, heavy metal values were found similar in terms of land use while it was determined that there was a statistical difference for sampling points and the highest values were Cu (5669,70 ppb), Fe (4647.47 ppb), Pb (42,99 ppb) Zn (2837.16 ppb) at the outlet of the mining area (M5 point). As a result, it was concluded that waters coming from the mining area have negative effects on Murgul Creek with respect to water quality parameters, SSP and heavy metals.