Abstract

Pollution caused by the discharge of wastewaterinto the Lepenc river basin is diverse and directly affects thequality of life of the inhabitants of this area. This paper aims toinvestigate the physicochemical characteristics of pollutionfrom wastewater discharges, build the water balance of theentire basin, and identify the risk to human life due to lack ofdrinking water. From the hydrological point of view, theLepenc river basin is divided into sub-basins, and the resultsobtained by experimental measurements show that wastewaterpollution varies from one sub-basin to another and depends onthe amount and origin of wastewater. Combined analysis of theavailable amount of water and the need for clean water, whichis based on parameters that are out of the water balance belowthe water stress limit, the need for wastewater treatment is anecessity and that continuous water discharge of contaminantsin the water basin is unacceptable or in other words verydangerous. The results showed that some analyzed parametersare outside the acceptable limits for drinking water such as TSSwith values above 75 mg/L, BOD₅ with values up to 9.42 mg/L, NH⁺₄ up to 9.48 mg/L, and PO^3-₄ up to 1.76 mg/L. On the otherhand, the waters of the Lepenci river basin had low heavy metalpollution during the observed period. Therefore, routinemonitoring of wastewater in the Lepenc Basin is recommendedto prevent the risk of pollution of the basin,